FALMOUTH — In the 23rd round, Nat Jordan won the Cumberland County Spelling Bee with the word “coloratura.”

Jordan, 13, is an eighth-grader from Cape Elizabeth and the defending state champion. He outlasted a field of 21 Tuesday night at Falmouth Middle School, where students from 11 schools in grades five through eight competed.

Runner-up Lucy Tumavicus, a seventh-grader from Lincoln Middle School in Portland, spelled 21 words correctly before running into “roodebok.”

Another sixth-grader, Eliza Rudalevige of Brunswick Junior High, breezed through 18 rounds without a hitch until “gynarchy” spelled her elimination.

The state spelling bee, sponsored by the Maine Sunday Telegram, is scheduled for March 30th in Portland at the University of Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall.

This story was updated at 7:10 p.m. Feb. 24 to say Eliza Rudalevige is a sixth-grader.


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