Cooper Komatsu, speller 13, correctly spelled "inessive" to stay in the competition.
"Since this is my first year here, I feel like I either got really lucky or I studied a lot," he said. "I was lucky because I studied a lot."
Cooper, who finished fourth this year in the North American School Scrabble Championship along with a partner, said a lot of his vocabulary comes from Scrabble.
"I feel great," he said. "I'm about to go on stage. I'm going to be on national television."