PHOENIX — To be a Super Bowl champion, you can allow points and commit penalties and still hoist the trophy in the end.
To be a spelling bee champion - you have to perform perfectly.
Maricopa County's regional spelling bees are underway across the Valley.
Scottsdale Unified hosted 40, 3rd through 8th-grade spellers on Friday.
The top two winners get a shot to compete in the state spelling bee next month.
For more than three hours at Coronado High School in Scottsdale, young minds were challenged with any word from Merriam-Webster's unabridged dictionary.
One letter off - and you're out.
Can you spell analgesia? Ishana Karthik of Adams Traditional Academy in Phoenix can.
Spellers can ask the origin of the word, how it's used in a sentence and the definition.
For those who didn't win, the hours of practice are bound to pay off away from the spelling bee stage.
“Their reading, their writing, we write in math and social studies and science. We write in all of them,” said Dr. Kim Dodds Keran, director of teaching and learning for Scottsdale Unified School District.
So as 40 dwindled to two... a familiar face nailed the championship word - Rastafarian
Sai Manvik Malreaddy, an 8th grader at Paradise Valley Unified School District, will compete for the state title next month along with Ishana Karthik.
Malreaddy came in 5th place statewide back in 2021. He admits, he was reluctant to even do the regional competition this year.
“I don't know, I thought I’d be stressed out,” said Malreaddy moments after he won the regional bee.
To sweeten the deal, his parents said if he comes in first or second - they'll take him to Disneyland.
“Kind of tense, like on every word. You have to get lucky as well,” said his father, Naveen Malreddy,
So like a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Sai Manvik Malreaddy will follow the same path as MVP Patrick Mahomes and plan a trip to Disneyland.
“I can't stop smiling,” he said in his post-bee interview.
The state spelling bee will be at Madison Center for the Arts on March 18th.
