Merced High makes it 8 in a row with Academic Decathlon win

Merced High School made it eight in a row by taking home first-place honors at the county’s Academic Decathlon on Saturday.

Merced’s team of eight seniors and one junior beat Atwater and Golden Valley in the large-school division, claiming first place in the overall scoring and on the Super Quiz. The medium-school division was won by Delhi and the small-school division’s top prize went to Le Grand.

Merced’s junior member of the team, John Richey, was returning for his third time as a decathlete and ended up scoring higher than any other student in the countywide competition.

“It feels really nice being part of something so great as the decathlon. It’s really nice to be able to continue a dynasty of winning,” Richey said Sunday.

The 16-year-old said he was particularly pleased with the gold medal he earned in the economics competition. At Merced High, he said, “you don’t take economics until senior year, so to take a gold without taking a class is really something.”

In addition to economics, the students compete in art, language and literature, mathematics, music, social science and science. They also deliver prepared essays, give impromptu speeches and oral interviews, and participate in the relay competition known as the Super Quiz.

For Richey, the most challenging area was music because the subject was tailored to this year’s theme for the event – India.

“Music definitely was the most challenging because we have so many different terms, different Indian terms and words. They have an entirely different system than we have,” he said.

But the secret to success is pretty basic, he said: “All it is, is studying. Studying a lot, reading the packets and putting a lot of time into it.”

Richey, who also is a member of Merced’s golf team, is aiming to continue his education at Stanford University. But given that school’s tough acceptance rate, he says his chances are better of attending UCLA.

He’s still looking to figure out a career path, he said. “I want to follow in my dad’s footsteps as a radiologist. Or, maybe an attorney of some sort.”

Merced High academic decathletes will compete in Division 3 at the state competition next month in Sacramento.

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 5:48 PM with the headline "Merced High makes it 8 in a row with Academic Decathlon win."