Questions were asked, pages were turned and numerous Umatilla County students faced teams from across Eastern Oregon on Saturday during the 2011 Battle of the Books regional competition in La Grande.

The regional competition included students in two divisions: grades three through five and grades six through eight. Five Hermiston elementary school teams made the drive, along with a team from each of the Hermiston middle schools and a group from Umatillas Clara Brownell Middle School.

Despite confusing preliminary results, the Clara Brownell Team Emily Stonecypher, Caden Sipe, Cameron Sipe, Anabel Moreno, Captain Megan Lorence and coach Edna Champie took home the regional championship and will travel to the state competition April 16 in Salem.

It was an amazing day. Due to a calculation error by the lead person of the event, our team was first told they didnt make the final four and was sent home, district Superintendent Heidi Sipe said. Coach Champie appealed and revealed that they had missed 20 points from our score. We had, in fact, tied for first place with Vale. This put us back into the championship rounds, and we had to compete in two additional battles to end up bringing home the Championship. It was very exciting.

The Umatilla High School team will also travel to the state competition; however, there were not enough high school teams competing to have a regional competition.

We are very excited to be sending two teams to state this year, Sipe said.

Of the Hermiston elementary teams, three proceeded into bracketed play in the competition, and one team, from West Park Elementary, made it to the semifinals, finishing in the top four out of 13 teams, according to Hermiston coordinator Kristi Smalley.

They were just one win short of qualifying for state, Smalley said. The kids were just fabulous. They really represented Hermiston well as far as their behavior and the way they presented themselves at the matches. They were great representatives of our town, and the parents were so supportive.

Multiple teachers also traveled to La Grande to cheer on the teams.

Everyone was very supportive, and thats really neat to see, Smalley said. Of course, and this was reiterated at the competition, the most important part of this program is that the kids read the books, they read a variety of books and they enjoyed them.