Speller Jennifer Mong had 'amazing' experience

The word "vellon" played the role of villain in Jennifer Mong’s quest for the Scripps National Spelling Bee title, but the St. John’s girl says her experience at the competition was "amazing" nonetheless.

The Macdonald Drive Junior High student made it to the sixth round, finishing in a tie for 10th place overall. There were 278 spellers competing for the title.

Mong, 12, says she knew the words at that level of competition were going to be tough.

"This is the Scripps," she told CBC News in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., Friday morning. "It’s going to be hard … It was really difficult this year."

Mong was the last Canadian standing in the competition. She qualified by winning the 2012 Postmedia Canspell National Spelling Bee.

She says a highlight of the experience was the people she met, from Missouri, Hawaii and even Ghana.

"It was absolutely amazing," Mong said. "I’m never going to forget it."

That said, she is glad the competition is now over.

"Oh definitely, there’s no doubt about it," Mong said.

She acknowledges that the nerves associated with the competition kept her awake at night — a situation she plans to rectify when she gets home. "[I’ll] probably just sleep, and take a really long nap."

Mong passed the round one test, which saw words ranging from somnial to andragogy. In rounds two through five she successfully spelled limousine, vaticination, berserker and lymphopoiesis before being tripped up by vellon.

"I was like, ‘Wow, is that even a word?’ I’d never heard of it before."

She added an extra "e" to the end of the word, which has Spanish origins with a French twist.

In the end, Snigdha Nandipati, 14, of San Diego outlasted her competition through 13 rounds to become the overall champion speller.