After finishing second for the fourth consecutive year in the State Spelling Bee on Saturday, Rajat Singh was crushed.

The 12-year-old Academy for Technology and the Classics student was sure that this was his year to win a spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

He'd won the Santa Fe County Bee for four years straight, but for the last three years, he lost to Matthew Evans, a Rio Rancho home-schooler, in the state contest. This year, Matthew was too old to compete and Raj, as he's known, saw an opening.

As in the last three years, Raj was one of the last two spellers, and once again he was facing off against an Evans — but this time it was Matthew's sister, Hannah.

Raj admits it was frustrating. "After so long, I finally get a chance — and then his sister shows up," he said.

When Raj went out on a misspelled word and Hannah won the contest, the cycle was complete.

"We were all gloomy for two days," said Ganesh Singh, Raj's dad. "We said 'Enough, no more spelling bees.' "

The family sat around the house all weekend. "We were all heartbroken," Raj said, "My dad wanted to burn all the (spelling) materials."

But soon the family started rethinking the results. Ganesh Singh began doing some online research on the word that had tripped up Raj. He even went to MerriamWebster.com and paid the $5 fee to access the site's premium service.

The judges had asked Raj to spell mesophilic, a word meaning growing or thriving best in an intermediate environment, as in one of a moderate temperature.

As the rules permit, Raj asked to hear the word used in a sentence — and also for its origin and any alternate pronunciations.

Then he spelled a word he had studied, which is different, but sounds the same. It was mesophyllic, an adjective derived from the word mesophyll referring to the tissues of a leaf that are located in between the layers of epidermis and carry on photosynthesis, according to an online dictionary.

The rules require that judges tell contestants whether words have homonyms, but in this case they neglected to do so, Ganesh Singh said.

So Singh contacted Jan Jonas, who coordinates the state's bee, and told her about the omission.

"(Jonas) called the national spelling bee and she told them what happened," Singh said. She warned him that she'd never heard of officials at the Scripps National Spelling Bee overturning a local decision. She also offered a bit of hope, saying, "There's a first time for everything."

That was Monday. On Tuesday, officials met to mull over the decision.

At 11 a.m. Wednesday, Singh got a phone call. It was Jonas.

"She called me and she said, 'I have good news for you,' " Singh said. The decision of national officials was that both Hannah and Raj would compete in Washington, D.C. "Oh boy, I left my work, I took my wife and we went to the school."

Raj was in fourth period, Dana Johnson's English class. The phone rang. Johnson spoke to the person on the other line and then hung up.

"She said, 'Raj, you're going to Washington; your parents are coming to pick you up,' " Raj said. "All my classmates were clapping for me."

The family went out for lunch at Applebee's, and then spent the rest of the afternoon at home. Monika Singh, Raj's mom, is already looking for words to study, and Ganesh is shopping for plane tickets. The national competition is May 28-29.

Raj played video games and tried to take in the news. "I'm feeling, like, shocked," Raj said. "I'm just so happy that after four years, I'm finally going to D.C."

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.