Komarek School third-grader Marly Santora went toe-to-toe with two seventh-graders Friday to take third place in an area-wide spelling bee.

Marly, 8, was the youngest student ever to win the spelling bee at the North Riverside school and one of the youngest ever to compete in the Chicago Tribune’s Central Suburban Cook County Spelling Bee Finals. If she had won, Marly would have advanced to the Chicagoland Suburban Spelling Bee Finals and had a chance to qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Washington, D.C.

But Marly was eliminated after misspelling the word conceited during the competition, which was held at Mannheim Middle School in Melrose Park. Despite the loss, she still had a good time.

“It was fun,” Marly said. “(The words) were all from the list they used for the school bee, so it was pretty easy until it was down to three spellers.”

At that point, the list was thrown out and any word in the dictionary was fair game.

Marly plans to study hard for next year’s bee to have another shot at qualifying for the National Spelling Bee. She said in addition to memorizing the word list, she’s going to study words that are not on the list.   

Principal Tom Criscione said because of her age, he believes Marly has a real shot at someday competing in Washington.

“She’s smart enough and confident enough,” he said. “I’m very proud of her.”

Dan Petrella's e-mail address is dpetrella@libertysuburban.com