The returning champion to this year’s Riverside County Spelling Bee clinched the championship title for the second year in a row, following 16 rounds of competition Thursday in downtown Riverside.
Victoria Li from the Philistine Rondo School of Discovery in the Corona-Norco Unified School District correctly spelled “ejecta” — meaning to expel an object, as from an eruption — to win the 48th annual contest Thursday. The seventh-grader was the winner in 2025, as well, after 23 rounds of testing her word power.
“Each student who competed in this year’s Riverside County Spelling Bee should be incredibly proud of their achievement,” Superintendent of Schools Edwin Gomez said. “The discipline and skill under pressure they demonstrated throughout this process will serve them well on their academic and professional journeys. We wish Victoria the very best as she represents the county at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.”
The national meet is set for May 26-28 in Washington, D.C.
Li represented the county there last year, finishing in the quarter finals at 58th place.
A total 28 students in grades 4 to 8 from public, private and charter schools competed in the 2026 county bee, held at the Office of Education’s Conference Center on Brockton Avenue.
Jacob Schliekelman, a sixth-grader from Ruth Brown Elementary School in the Palo Verde Unified School District, took second place, while there was a tie for third between Aaliyah Alexander, a seventh-grader from Granite Hills TK-8 School in the Romoland School District, and Ezio Camerino, an eighth-grader from San Gorgonio Middle School in the Beaumont Unified School District.
According to the Office of Education, in preparation for the bee, the youths studied 4,000 assigned words. However, after the eighth round, students “advanced to words beyond the official study list,” the agency stated.
The random words list narrowed down the number of contestants, ending with Li on top.