LI student misses spelling bee spot by 1 point

Losing: upsetting. Losing by one point: heartbreaking.

Casey Durant lost her bid to become a semifinalist in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., Thursday, missing out on one of the 49 spots by one point.

Durant, 13, an eighth-grader at New Hyde Park Memorial High School, who won the Long Island spelling bee in March, scored 26 points; the cutoff was 27.

"I'm disappointed," she said dejectedly. "I guess I'm happy that I made it this far, but missing it by one point, just being so close . . . it's frustrating."

Her parents said they are proud of their daughter's performance. "Only 49 children made it, so I think she did great," said her mother, Ushir.

There were 274 contestants in the 83rd edition of the bee. The spellers ranged in age from 8 to 15 years old. English was not the first language of 21 spellers, and 102 spellers spoke languages other than English. Only one local student, Arvind Mahankali of Forest Hills, made it into the semifinals.

Durant completed Wednesday's first round, a written test of 50 words, 25 of which counted toward the final score. The second and third rounds were oral. Durant was given the words "Buddha" and "dyscalculia," both of which she spelled correctly.

She earned six points for the last two rounds but missed five of the 25 words in the written test. Among those she missed: cynophilist and remittance.

To prepare for competitions, Durant studied from a 400-page list of frequently used words. She also received help from her father, Kevin Durant, who recorded audiotapes of certain words to help her recognize them when spoken by the pronouncer.

Still, he worried his daughter might be at a disadvantage.

"A lot of kids have been studying around the clock," her father said. "She's involved in so many things, she hasn't had as much time to devote to spelling." Casey Durant is on the varsity golf team, the student council, plays viola in the orchestra and is editor of the student newspaper, among other activities.

Durant, who hopes to be an author, said she doesn't have any regrets. "I guess I wish that I had more time to study, but if I had more time to study that means I would have done less of other things," she said."They're all very important to me and it would have been so hard to choose one and drop all the others."

She has state golf championships next week and in the fall will attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.

"It's a lot of fun to meet all these different people who are so intelligent from all over the world and I think that I can really form friendships with them," Durant said. "It was a great experience and I'm happy that I was able to take part in it, even if I didn't make it to the semifinals."