A Garnet Valley eighth grader from Glen Mills made it to the finals in the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year, ranking in 10^th place out of 231 students, writes Maddie Hanna for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“I’m definitely happy — I never would have thought I’d have been a finalist,” said the 14-year-old.

Pranav Anandh got to where he did by working with three coaches and studying five hours a night.

That got him through the first eight rounds of the National Spelling Bee—he could even spell obscure words, like kyphoplasty, telergy, and polissoir.

He was already a spelling pro, having made it to the Scripps semifinals last year and the quarterfinals the year before.

And he won the Delaware County regional spelling bee in February.

This time, though, his training couldn’t get him past the word “querken”, delivered in the ninth round.  Querken means “to cause to gasp,” according to Merriam Webster.

After gleaning all the information he could on the word, it came down to whether it was q-u-i or q-u-e. He went with q-u-i.

“At that moment, I didn’t really feel what happened. I was in shock,” he said. “It didn’t really hit me until I came off the stage and sat down.”

Read more about Pranav Anandh in The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Here was the winning moment at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.