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New York City's two best spellers were tossed some tough words yesterday at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington - a suspense-filled event that ended in defeat for both. Alexander Martin, 13, an eighth-grader at the Dwight School on the upper West Side, made it to the fourth round - correctly spelling "quokka," a small short-tailed Australian wallaby, and several other esoteric words - before stumbling on "dissilient," a Latin-derived word that means "springing apart, specifically bursting open." Associating the word with "resilient," Martin spelled it incorrectly - "desilient" - and heard the dreaded bell that signaled his elimination. "I felt a tiny bit of relief, but it was more disappointment," said Martin, who was sponsored by the Daily News along with Rajdeep Chahal of Queens. Since Martin is entering high school, he will not be eligible to compete in the bee next year. "It was a bit of a letdown that you only get to do it once," he said. By reaching the fourth round, Martin was one of the final 71 spellers left in the competition out of a group of 273 kids from around the world. By day's end, the field was narrowed to 51 spellers, who will compete today in Round Five. Martin will cheer his new friends on, with his parents by his side. "I'm a little sad that it's all over," said Barbara ****, 53, Martin's mom and spelling coach. "The experience of studying was difficult, but it was a lot of time that we spent together." Chahal, 12, a seventh-grader at Middle School 137 in Ozone Park, was stumped in the second round by "feuilleton," or "the part of a European newspaper devoted to light fiction, reviews, and articles of general entertainment." Confused by the odd-sounding, French-derived word, Chahal spelled it "fuolyurtone." The normally talkative and hyper Chahal was subdued after he misspelled the word. "I feel disappointed," he said. But even before the bee began, Chahal's mother and spelling coach Chandra Kumarie Singh was optimistic for the future. "We'll be coming back next year," she predicted. |