3 Ohioans advance to 5th round, which is being televised on ESPN

The second round of the spelling bee consisted of a 25-word written test.
By DAVID ENRICH
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- Standing on a sprawling stage, 13-year-old Quay Kieran Roberts exuded the quiet confidence of a seasoned veteran.
Last year, Quay made it to the third round of the fiercely competitive Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.
This year, the eighth-grader at Lake Ridge Academy in North Ridgeville survived the third round of the 76th annual bee, but stumbled in the fourth when she misspelled florisugent, which means "sucking nectar from flowers." She spelled it f-l-o-r-a-s-u-g-e-n-t.
Her cheeks sparkling with "good luck" glitter, Quay breezed through the bee's first round Wednesday, confidently spelling ogival, which means "characterized by the use of pointed arches."
She was one of 175 middle-school spellers to advance to the bee's second round, which was a 25-word written test. The words ranged from relatively easy (loneliness and athlete) to absurdly difficult (pareiasaur and mycetismus).
By the end of the test, Quay's calm demeanor had vanished. Nervously nibbling her fingernails, she said she had misspelled nine of the 25 words.
"I have a lot more expectations to live up to because my whole school expects me to win," she said. "I won't."
Quay was one of 84 spellers -- and four Ohioans -- who advanced to today's competition, which is being televised on ESPN.
Three remaining Ohioans who survived Round 4 today were: Nathanael Bonnell, 14, of Cincinnati; Elisa Gonzalez, 14, of Pickerington; and Abigail Eustace, 13, of Beavercreek.
Vindicator champ
Kelly Morckel, The Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee champion, fell in the first round when she failed to spell jicara correctly.
Marissa J. Patterson, a seventh-grader at Our Lady of the Elms School in Akron, had hoped to join Quay.
In the first round, Marissa had to spell bugaku. After asking for its definition -- a classical Japanese dance -- the 12-year-old nailed the correct spelling.
The second round didn't go so well. Marissa missed 12 words.
"I winged it, and I think I crashed," she said, accurately predicting that she wouldn't advance to the third round. "I'm going to come back and try to win next year."