Indianapolis speller knocked out of bee by 'oppidan'

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Cy Orentlicher breezed through the 88th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, correctly spelling capotasto, ultradian, vulcanize and other words. "And then I got hit with that curveball," he said Thursday.

With his hands in his pants pockets and leaning slightly forward toward the microphone, Orentlicher, 14, asked the judges for the definition and word origin in hopes the extra insight would help him advance beyond Round 6 to the finals.

Then, after a brief pause, Orentlicher methodically spelled O-P-A-D-A-N before he heard the dreaded ding of a bell that signals a misspelling. He was off by two letters on the correct spelling of oppidan, which means belonging to, relating to or found in a town, such as a resident or university.

"My first reaction is, what the heck is this word," Orentlicher said. "I had a general idea of how it might go, but I had to guess on parts of it, and I ended up getting it wrong."

Orentlicher's 22nd-place finish was a noticeable improvement from his last performance, in 2013, when he finished 43rd. It also was the last time the eighth-grader from Hasten Hebrew Academy of Indianapolis would take the stage in the popular spelling bee, which started in 1925 with only nine spellers. This year's event began Tuesday with 283 spellers — 14 of them from Indiana — ranging in age from 9 to 15.

To get ready for the three-day spell-a-thon near Washington, his mom procured word lists to review and helped him create a study plan. With his mom, dad and sister never far away in the audience, Orentlicher left the stage during commercials of the ESPN broadcast for hugs and words of encouragement.

"He always delights me and makes me proud," said his mom, Judy Failer. "When he gets up there, he can spell words and figure out words that I could never imagine spelling or understanding."

After he was eliminated from competition Thursday, Orentlicher walked out of the ballroom with his mom, their arms wrapped around each other. Then his dad, David, appeared and told his son, "You did great," before a dejected Orentlicher put his head on his father's shoulder for support.

Orentlicher, who loves physics and Leonardo da Vinci and considers his father his role model, said his previous experience spelling words on the big stage helped quell any nerves.

"I wasn't actually nervous about being onstage or anything because, been there, done that," he said. The hardest part of the whole bee, he said, was the challenging vocabulary and spelling tests — the much less glamorous but important word chores that play a major role in determining which spellers advance in the bee.

Orentlicher was hopeful this wasn't the last Scripps National Spelling Bee he'll be able to attend, with his 11-year old sister a successful speller in her own right. "I'm hopeful she'll decide to compete so I can come back here," he said. "It was an awesome experience."

Speaking of awesome, the bee ended in a tie for the second straight year: Indian-Americans Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam are co-champions. The bee hadn't ended in a tie for 52 years — until last year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Email Christopher Doering atcdoering@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @cdoering.