"Good evening." Alia Abiad (Speller 58) greeted Dr. Bailly.
"Howdy," he replied.
Alia -- and the three spellers before her -- all spelled their first word correctly. Tajaun Gibbison (Speller 87), the polite Jamaican speller who followed her, correctly spelled "charcuterie" to stay in the competition.
The sixth speller, Gokul Venkatachalam (Speller 139), correctly spelled "onychoschizia," while the only speller returning to the finals, Sriram Hathwar (Speller , spelled "détraqué" correctly.
"I don't wish for them to view me as someone above them in any way shape or form," Sriram said in an ESPN interview of his status as a returning finalist.
Ashwin Veeramani (Speller 188) spelled "holophote" correctly going into a commercial break.