Photo provided Natasha Lulla, Niharika Kota, and Ridhi Tirupathi were among the state champion spellers at Indiana’s spell bowl this year.
Central Middle Schools’ Spell Bowl team earned the title of overall state champions last weekend, going back-to-back in the Indiana Academic Spell Bowl Junior Division State Finals.
The Chargers had all competing students score a perfect score in every round of competition Saturday at Purdue University against teams from across the state, retaining the honor of grand champions.
The highest-scoring 29 teams from regionals, regardless of class size, gathered to spell it out at the grand championship, Coach Mindy Summer said. The Chargers returned home with a plaque and banner commemorating their achievement.
The Chargers were almost perfect in 2024 — scoring seven perfect ribbons and one near-perfect ribbon — but did one better this year.
When Superintendent Chad Phillips mentioned the performance during Monday’s school board meeting their were audible gasps of amazement.
The team held an individual competition on Wednesday for the 10 students who scored perfect scores in regionals and finals competition, with nine of them remaining perfect over five rounds, at 10 words each round, Summers said.
The Grand Champion Chargers Spell Bowl Team includes:
- Mohak Athaley
- Courtney Gaines
- Niharika Kota*
- Tim Kukharskyi
- Amritaa Leelakrishnan
- Natasha Lulla*
- Sinchana Manjunatha
- Vernica Prabhu
- Ritvik Prithivi Raj*
- Sreekar Reddem
- Ameya Sharma*
- Revant Sharma
- Aarav Sriram*
- Subbu Subbiah
- Stavyah Suresh*
- Hitarth Taxak
- Ridhi Tirupathi*
- Aizah Warsi
- Shreyas Yepuri*
- Xavier Zhang*
Note: * connotes those who earned perfect scores
