From left in back row are Coach Siebrase, Devan Chandler, Mateo Salazar, Abby Bowers, Kennedy Kohler, Mallory Bowers and Emily McGriff. From left in front row are Thatcher Keesee and Cheney Canada.

AKRON — A team of eight students at Tippecanoe Valley Middle School will soon compete at the state level after placing first in their class at the Indiana Academic Spell Bowl Junior Division regional qualifications.

Tippecanoe Valley Middle School and nine other schools throughout Indiana competed in the regional qualification Tuesday night, which was hosted by TVMS.

“We had a score of 45 and we got the top position. We’re all really excited,” said spell coach Susanne Siebrase.

A perfect score is 72 for junior division teams. Students were broken up into classes one, two, three, and four. The class a team falls in is based on last year’s enrollment. TVMS is in class three.

TVMS will now be competing against six other teams in the state competition on November 12 at Purdue University. The students are studying a list of 1,600 words for about 30 minutes a day to prepare.

“We practice really hard. The strategy that I use is that I focus on words that are difficult that they might not have heard before,” said Siebrase.

This will be the third trip to the state finals in the last four years for TVMS. The last time the TVMS team went to state was two years ago.

The Indiana Academic Spell Bowl State Finals will be held Saturday, November 12, at the Loeb Playhouse in the Stewart Center at Purdue University. The senior division competition begins at 11:00 a.m. and the junior division competition begins at 3:00 p.m.