UPDATE: Granada Hills High Wins State Academic Decathlon for 3rd Time

For the third consecutive year, Granada Hills Charter High School won the state Academic Decathlon Sunday in Sacramento with 56,165 points out of a possible out of 65,400. The team has been national champ twice.

El Camino Real Charter High School took second place with 55,669 points. 

Both Schools advance to the national contest in Minneapolis on April 25-27. Granada Hills team beat more than 500 students from 61 schools from across the state.

The decathletes return to Granada Hills Charter at 8 a.m. Monday for a celebratory "welcome back" at the school entrance.

"A three-peat in the Los Angeles competition and now the state competition is exceptional," said Executive Director Brian Bauer. "We are extremely proud of the accomplishments of this hard working and cohesive team and their exceptional coaches and will be supporting them whole-heartedly as they prepare for the national competition next month."

Los Angeles County high schools took the top five spots. Franklin, Marshall and Beverly Hills high schools took third, fourth and fifth place.

The Academic Decathlon is a grueling two-day competition that tests participants on a range of topics from math and science to art and literature in all kinds of formats. There are multiple choice, fast-paced trivia questions, essays, speeches and interview competitions. The teams, comprised of three "A" students, three "B" students and three "C" students, spend hours studying and preparing for the competition. This year’s theme was “Russia.”

The Granada Hills team includes Jae Kyung Chong, Seung Woo Baek, Hamidah Mahmud, Kimberly Ly, Kieelye Ma, Kailin Li, Dayoung Kim, Faria Ghori and Beatrice Dimaunahan. Their coaches are Nick Weber, Matt Arnold and Spencer Wolf.

"A lot of other states are going to be gunning for California in the national competition," Ken Scarberry, executive director of the California Academic Decathlon, told KNBC4.

Out of 31 years, California has placed first or second every year at the national level except for once in 1982, Scarberry said.

“Some of these kids can’t believe they achieved a medal at a state competition,” Scarberry said. “It’s an awesome experience to see dozens of medals around their necks.”

The Russian-themed decathlon posited questions to the students about everything from the Space Race between the United States and Soviet Union in the science category to Boris Pasternak’s famous novel "Doctor Zhivago" in the literature category, KNBC4 reported.

The Granada Hills team is now the reining three-time city and state Academic Decathlon champion as well as reigning back-to-back national champ. The School remains the only charter school in the more than 30-year history of the National Academic Decathlon competition to claim the city and state title three years in a row.