Tampa Bay area student wins 2024 National Spelling Bee

TAMPA, Fla. - For the second straight year, a student from the Tampa Bay area won the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Twelve-year-old Bruhat Soma took home the trophy after beating out his competitor, Faizan Zaki, in a lightning-round spell-off. 

READ: Largo's 2023 National Spelling Bee champion won in final year of eligibility

The 12-year-old seventh grader from Tampa spelled a whopping 29 of 30 words correctly in 90 seconds on Thursday night, nine more than Zaki. 

"It's like a dream come true," Soma said.

Soma attends Turner/Bartels K-8 School in New Tampa where he will enter eighth grade next year. With this competition, he was determined to make it further than he did last year.

"Last year, I was really disappointed, because my goal was to make finals last year, but then I lost in the first round of quarters," Soma said.

FOX 13 spoke with last year's champion Dev Shah, who comes from Largo. He said he helped train with Bruhat this past year, and he's thrilled that the trophy and bragging rights are staying in the Tampa Bay area. 

READ: National Spelling Bee: Dev Shah, 14, wins with final word 'psammophile'

"It's so much to get to this level like you're spelling every day," Shah said. "And it's really a lot of poise, confidence, and determination, especially when you're up in front of millions of people spelling words like this and just zooming through those words. It's so hard, and I'm just amazed by it."

Nupur Lala, the 1999 National Selling Bee Champion from Tampa, and Shah were both on stage during the competition. Lala was back to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her victory. 

"I, like Bruhat, had got out before the semifinals the year before I won," Lala said. "I was very determined just to do better than how I had done the last year."

Lala says there have only been four winners from Florida, and three of them are from the Tampa Bay area.

"It's something where it felt so serendipitous and cool to have somebody win from your spelling hometown, as I term Tampa, on the night that you come back a decade later, and especially somebody who I think did it with exceptional skill and style. Bruhat was incredible," Lala said.

In addition to challenging English words, Bruhat had to navigate German words like "dehnstufe" and names of obscure cities like "Hoofddorp." 

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His winning word was "abseil." It is a Germanic word meaning "a descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above."

As a champion, he receives a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.