A home-schooled student from Annapolis won this month’s Maryland Sports Spelling Bee, topping 23 other students from five counties.

Storrie Kulynych-Irvin was in the field of 24 students who lasted through 136 words, then captured the competition, held at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, by correctly spelling the word “patel.”

Yes, that’s p-a-t-e-l, a male Indian official, pronounced p-uh-t-eh-l. The word was probably the most difficult Storrie spelled, she said, and she went through it carefully and slowly.

Students from Carroll, Garrett, Harford, St. Mary’s and Kent counties and the city of Annapolis participated. Ten of the 24 students were from Annapolis.

Storrie is a two-time Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee winner, and is eligible to advance to the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington.

Bates Middle School eighth-grader Isabel Messina won the 30th annual county spelling bee last month, and will represent Anne Arundel at the national bee.

To reach the final competition, local winners will have to advance through Bee Week steps and earn a preliminaries score which will determine who moves on.

Bee Week will be May 27 through June 1, with finals occurring at 8:30 p.m. May 31.

Storrie won the Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee in 2016 and 2017. She said she has always had an interest in competitions.

“I guess I just had fun on spelling tests,” she said.

dohl@capgaznews.com