Santa Teresa Middle School eighth-grader Andrés Arreola has won the National Spanish Spelling Bee for the second year in a row.

It looked like the national championship might have slipped away from Andrés Arreola, 13, at the fifth annual National Spanish Spelling Bee last month at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque.

After 4½ hours and 19 rounds, the national competition was down to its final contestants.

While spelling the word “tortuosidad,” Arreola made a mistake, spelling the word with a “C” instead of an “S.” He said later that he stepped away from the microphone not thinking about whether he lost or not because the experience was all that mattered to him.

The other finalist, Kiara Rivas-Vasques from Oregon, approached the microphone ready to spell the word Arreola had misspelled. She was successful.

All she had to do was spell one more word: “añagaza.”

She misspelled the word.

Arreola rose to his second chance and correctly spelled the word.

He then had to spell an additional word correctly.

The announcer presented Arreola with “omnisciencia” to spell. After spelling the word correctly, the Gadsden Independent School District student became the champion of the National Spanish Spelling Bee for the second year in a row.

“I was expecting to get (the word) wrong. Thank God I got it right,” said Arreola, who represents the southern New Mexico school district alongside Judith Villa as two-time winners in the spelling bee.

Arreola won the 2014 National Spanish Spelling Bee in competition with Villa, who did not participate this year.

“We come to make friends, not enemies, and that’s actually true,” Arreola said.

After the win, the crowd, judges, parents and other contestants celebrated with Arreola. “It was beautiful,” he said.

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