Taft High Ties for 1st in National Super Quiz : Decathlon: The Woodland Hills team earns a perfect score. It is a strong contender for the overall title.

NEWARK, N.J. — A nine-student team from Taft High School in Woodland Hills won another trophy for California and the Los Angeles Unified School District on Saturday, earning a perfect score in the national Academic Decathlon’s Super Quiz.

Taft tied a team representing Massachusetts for first place in the high-stakes, game-show style quiz, the only decathlon event open to the public.

Although their Super Quiz marks do not ensure that the Woodland Hills students will win the 13th annual academic contest, they mean the team is a strong contender. Scores in the event’s other nine tests will not be released until this morning’s awards banquet.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome,” said Andrew Salter, 17, as he hugged his parents after the quiz. “We have a very good chance of winning.”

Taft defeated teams from San Antonio, Tex., and Chicago, Ill., which the California contenders believed to be their biggest threats. Those schools took second and third place, respectively.

The Massachusetts team from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, was not considered one of the top four teams going into the competition, based on its scores in state competition. Massachusetts team members hugged each other and squealed after their victory was announced, expressing as much surprise as pleasure.

“We knew we were a good team, but we never suspected we could actually pull off a perfect score in Super Quiz,” said Massachusetts team member Ravi Nanavati, 17. “It’s possible that we can win the whole thing, but I don’t know how likely that is.”

The Taft team won the national title in 1989 and last year placed second nationally. The Woodland Hills school has won the California decathlon three times in recent years.

The Super Quiz is the last and most intense of the decathlon’s events. Each team sent one student at a time onto a gymnasium floor at Essex Community College to answer five oral questions, each worth 200 points. Scores are posted after each question for the student’s teammates, parents and competitors to see.

This year’s theme, “The Documents of Freedom,” tested students’ knowledge of excerpts from 19 documents, including the Gettysburg Address, the Camp David Accord and the May 16, 1989, declaration of the students who revolted in China’s Tian An Men Square.

On Friday, students representing 41 states and the District of Columbia each wrote a 60-minute essay, gave a four-minute prepared speech, a two-minute impromptu speech and submitted to a seven-minute interview with a panel of judges. Then, before Saturday’s quiz, they took written tests in math, fine arts, economics, science, literature and social studies. The Taft group was the last team to enter the gym for the quiz, using the precious few minutes following their final test for last-ditch study efforts or a chance to pace off the last-minute jitters.

As the Taft students walked into the building for their final event in the months-long process of studying and competing, 18-year-old Sheldon Peregrino paused, adjusted his necktie and took a deep breath.

“Here we go,” he said and strode through the door.

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Once down on the floor, hundreds of hours of preparation and countless practice run-throughs took over.

Sheldon was the second student in the hot seat. Neither he nor Chris Huie, 17, the student just before him, had missed a question.

“Which document states that every person has the right to own property?” the moderator asked. “One, the Magna Carta; two, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; three, the Great Law of Peace; four, the May 16 Declaration, or five, Pericles’ Funeral Oration.”

For each question, there was a painful, few seconds’ delay between the time correct answers were announced and the time scores were projected onto a movie screen. Some students saved their teammates the agony of waiting, like the teen-agers from Mesa, Ariz., who waved a good-luck stuffed bull in the air when they knew a teammate had answered correctly.

Like most of his teammates, Sheldon gave no indication of his standing, preferring to wait and let the team see for themselves. The correct answer was No. 2, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the team would soon learn that Sheldon knew it.

After every correct answer, supporters in the gym grandstands whooped and howled their team’s name. No group, including the team from the host state of New Jersey, had as much enthusiasm as the 68-person entourage that accompanied the Taft team.

In their signature red “GO TAFT!” sweat shirts--which debuted last year during the Los Angeles district’s competition and reprised at the state competition in Stockton last month--parents, school administrators and district officials took over the center grandstands, letting everyone know that they were undaunted by the 2,700-mile distance.

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After the victory, as the students made plans to build bonfires with their study aids and party through the last months of their senior year, Emily Sears Vaughn rejoiced with the other parents.

Then, like her 17-year-old son, Sage, she gave thanks that Academic Decathlon 1993-1994 was finished.

“I’m so proud and I’m so relieved,” she said. “Now they can go back to being normal, impossible teen-agers.”

Also competing for Taft were: Daniel Berdichevsky, 17; Michael Michrowski, 17; Rebecca Rissman, 17; Kimberly Shapiro, 16; and the team’s only junior, Stephen Shaw, 16.