Cathedral Chapel School’s team beat students from 100 other campuses on March 5 to take top honors in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Academic Junior High Decathlon.

The win marks the fourth time the school’s academic decathlon team has won the Los Angeles Archdiocese competition. The students will travel to Sacramento on April 1 to face winners throughout the state in the California Junior High Academic Decathlon.

Cathedral Chapel School celebrated its junior high academic decathlon team’s recent win in the Los Angeles Archdiocese competition. The students next compete in the state championship.
(photo courtesy of Cathedral Chapel School)

“I was really happy for the kids,” said Principal Tina Kipp. “Last year, they placed second. They have been very determined and very persistent in their studies this year to prepare for the event.”

Kipp said the students begin preparing for the decathlon every summer, spending hours honing their skills. The team is comprised of 10 students: 8th graders Cierra Adams, Valerie Ramirez, Gabriel Fellin, Maanasi Narayan, Grace Kim, Brandon Yeon, Josephina Ko, Kacey Kim and Matthew Rhee, and 6th grader Skye Connors.

The decathlon, held this year at California State University, Long Beach, includes super quiz and logic quiz team competitions, as well as individual tests in fine arts, science, literature, social studies, current events, religion, math and English. The team took first place in the super quiz and third place in the logic quiz, and the individual test competitors placed in the top 10 in all of their events. They scored a total of 21,340 points, more than 1,600 points over the second-place winner.

Cathedral Chapel School’s academic decathlon team is overseen by teachers Barbara Moldavon, Roman del Pozo, Long Pham and Gabrielle Craft.

Kipp said the students are very humble and declined having a pep rally prior to the Los Angeles Archdiocese academic decathlon. She added that they remained focused on winning the local competition, and will now turn their attention toward the state academic decathlon, which they won in 2002.

“They quietly excelled,” Kipp said. “I think they have a really good chance of winning the state.”

Cathedral Chapel School is located at 755 S. Cochran Avenue, in the Miracle Mile.