MONTEBELLO (CNS) - South Pasadena High School handily won the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon and will advance to the statewide competition in March, the county Office of Education announced today.

Six other schools scored high enough to earn wild-card bids to the state competition — Mark Keppel, Beverly Hills, Edgewood, Redondo Beach, West and South.

Mark Keppel High School won last year’s county Academic Decathlon.

South Pasadena High schored 52,572.5 points out of a possible 60,000 to claim first place. Mark Keppel placed second with 48,390.5, followed by Beverly Hills High School with 47,711.1.

The competition challenges student teams in 10 subjects: art, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, math, music, social science, speech and super quiz. The overall study theme was “New Alternatives in Energy: Ingenuity and Innovation.”

Elise Matsusaka of South Pasadena High School was the top individual scorer in the competition, with 9,119.2 points out of a possible 10,000.

Douglas Wu of Beverly Hills High was second with 9,045 points and Chaney Tse of Mark Keppel was third with 8,914.5.

The statewide competition will be held March 15-16 in Sacramento. The winning team will advance to the national contest, which will be held April 16-18 in Garden Grove.

The Los Angeles Unified School District will release the results of its competition Friday night.