The state’s top two high school Spell Bowl teams, Penn and Martinsville, met head on for the second time in eight days on Tuesday night, October 28, and once again the Kingsmen came out on top but only by the slimmest of margins.
At the Benton Central Invitational, the two defending co-state champs battled with the Artesians taking an early one point lead before the Kingsmen managed to tie the score and then finally pulled ahead to stay and earn an 89-88 victory.
The final standings at Benton Central were:
1.) Penn 89
2.) Martinsville 88
3.) Kouts 62
4.) Logansport 40
5.) McCutcheon 37
6.) Benton Central 29
7.) Lafayette Jeff 25
Perfect varsity spellers for Penn were: Michelle Tapp, Muqsit Buchh, Kanika Arora, Ari Kirsch, Presto George, Max Kirsch, Faihaan Arif, Chris Yun and Disha Waghray.
Perfect junior varsity spellers for the Kingsmen were: Nikita Kumar, Alice Kwak, Josh Rajkumar, Athreya Sundaram, Hannah Smith, Yejee Oh and Maggie Finnessey.
The Penn junior varsity outscored every other team’s varsity with the exception of Martinsville.
Next up for the Penn spellers is the Kouts Invitational on Wednesday, October 29, followed by the regional competition on Monday, November 3 at John Glenn.
The Penn High School Spell Bowl team displays their first place ribbons and perfect speller ribbons after winning the Benton Central Invitational on Tuesday, October 28.
Evelyn Gregory 
Avery Irving 
Jiyoon Moon