For weeks leading up to the national Academic Decathlon, two teams -- from California and Texas -- have been sizing each other up from afar, rekindling a rivalry nearly as old as the competition itself.
Each team has something to prove: Granada Hills Charter High School wants to maintain California's winning streak for the ninth consecutive year; Dobie High School, on the outskirts of Houston, wants to show that Texas, dormant as a frontrunner since 2000, is ready to be a contender again.
On Friday, Dobie upped the ante when it narrowly beat Granada Hills in the Super Quiz, the only public portion of the intense, two-day competition. (They'll find out who won overall here Saturday.)
The pressure has been on since the recent state-level competitions, when Dobie won in Texas with a score only 300 points lower than Granada Hills' winning score in California. In a competition where good teams score more than 50,000 points, that kind of margin is akin to, according to one description, a football game with a score of 20 to 20.4.
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