Snigdha Nandipati was one of the 41 semifinalists from an original field of 275. She advanced to the semifinals thanks to the combination of her score on a 25-word written test taken Tuesday and correctly spelling "avifauna" -- meaning birds from a specified region -- and "masala" -- a blend of Indian spices and herbs -- during Wednesday's second and third rounds.

In the fourth round Thursday, she correctly spelled "meridienne," a French term for a type of sofa. But in the fifth round, she misspelled "kerystic," an adjective that means pertaining to preaching.

The winner of the bee will receive $30,000 from Scripps, which owns television stations and newspapers, a $5,000 scholarship from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond from the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, and reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica valued at $2,600 and a lifetime membership to Britannica Online Premium and a Nook eReader and online course from K12 Inc.

The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below, with this year's original field of contestants ranging in age from 8 to 15 and from third through eighth grades.

Southern California has produced only one champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which began in 1925 -- Anurag Kashyap of Poway, the 2005 winner.