For 15 rounds, Megan Pancoast and Jenna McCrorie had calmly and correctly spelled each word they were given.

Speculate.

Literacy.

Curmudgeon.

Nonnegotiable.

They barely hesitated when they heard their words, instead plunging immediately into confident spellings. They outlasted 26 other opponents Friday at the Flathead County Spelling Bee and survived seven grueling rounds when they were the only two competitors left.

Eleven students were eliminated in the first round, stumbling over words such as writhe, abominable and yeti. Seven more went down in Round Two after struggling with elocution, feral and abacus.

Just 10 spellers remained by Round Three. By Round Eight, Pancoast and McCrorie were the only two left standing. After seven rounds, during which the girls deftly spelled newfangled, geode and hypochondria, they arrived at Round 15.

Pancoast, an eighth-grader at Swan River School, got off to a smooth start spelling kinesiology.

“K-I-N-E ...” She paused. “Can I start over? Can I have the language of origin?”

Pronouncer Nancy Kimball told her the word originated in Greek, and Pancoast easily finished spelling the word.

“Kinesiology. K-I-N-E-S-I-O-L-O-G-Y. Kinesiology.” She beamed when the judges nodded in approval.

Then McCrorie took the microphone. She repeated her word, nepotism, then began spelling.

“N-E-P-I-T-I-S-M. Nepotism.”

The judges sounded the bell that indicated a misspelling, and the audience groaned. But the bee wasn’t over yet. Pancoast still had to spell one more word correctly to win.

She didn’t hesitate a moment. “Plantigrade. P-L-A-N-T-I-G-R-A-D-E.”

Her smile widened when the judges nodded. The win was the end of a yearlong quest for Pancoast.

“It feels great,” she said after the bee wrapped up. “I placed second last year. I’m hoping to go on to nationals.”

Before she can compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., Pancoast has to survive the state competition.

She, McCrorie, an Edgerton Elementary fifth-grader, and Kennedy Payne, a fifth-grader from Ruder Elementary who finished third at the county bee, will compete at the state spelling bee March 26 in Billings. Jazmyn Austin, a seventh-grader from Evergreen Junior High School, is the alternate.

Pancoast said she finished 14th out of 66 spellers at last year’s state meet.

Until state, she plans to study for at least an hour every day — and maybe read the dictionary. She doesn’t turn to Noah Webster for light reading these days, preferring instead to lose herself in a good fantasy novel, but admits that she used to read words and definitions.

“When I was littler, I went to sleep with the dictionary,” she said, laughing.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.