Having won first place at the Southern California Private School Academic Decathlon in February, St. Francis High School of La Canada earned more honors at the statewide competition in Sacramento March 13-16.

St. Francis placed first in the California Academic Decathlon Medium School division gathering an impressive 40,727.3 points. The Knights also brought home five individual medals in the general competition, which included all participating schools. Kevin Hischier earned gold medals in Math and Interview, while bronze medals were won by Benjamin Dunst (Art), Robert Zavala (Art) and John Papadopoulos (Literature).

English teacher Dirk Dierking is the team's coach. The squad is comprised of seniors Hischier, Zavala, Andrew Marsh, Nikolai Starzak, Ryan Butler and Brendan Pasquini; juniors Dunst and Papadopoulos; and freshman Roylance Bird.

"This is such a great achievement for these young men, who have worked so hard for so many months, and we are extremely proud of them," said Dierking, in his fourth year as coach. "Our goal was just to get them in the frame of mind to believe that they are capable of this kind of achievement. They appear to have gotten that message, and I could not be more proud of our team."

The Golden Knights will now compete in the U.S. Academic Decathlon On-Line National Competitions in April.