El Camino wins CA quiz relay

From the Los Angeles Times...

Reporting from Sacramento — You could have cut the tension with some really sharp repartee, this being a room full of very smart people.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the theater?" tried emcee Amy Lewis after some technical glitches threatened to gum up the finale of the state Academic Decathlon on Sunday night.

That didn't entirely soothe the more than 500 competitors from 60 California high schools, or their coaches and parents, who half-filled the cavernous Sacramento Memorial Auditorium for the last event in a grueling two-day match to select the brainiest team of high schoolers in the state.

"Amateur hour," groused Marshall High coach Larry Welch.

But after discarding a rogue PowerPoint presentation that was displaying the wrong answers to quiz questions, the competition went on. ("We do truly apologize," state director Ken Scarberry said later.)

The unofficial winner of Sunday night's Super Quiz Relay, the only portion of the Decathlon waged in public, was no surprise. Perennial champ El Camino of Woodland Hills scored 58 of a possible 60 points.

Congratulations, but come on, perennial champ? Nobody likes an overachiever.