BANGOR – How do you spell relief? For reigning Maine spelling bee champion Rebecca Garthoff, it likely is spelled ANGLOPHILIA, a word that eluded her opponent Saturday in the state Spelling Bee and set the stage for Garthoff’s return visit to the national spelling bee.

Garthoff, who won last year’s state bee and tied for 13th place among 248 youths in the nationals, spelled anglophilia correctly and then the word reprobate to secure a berth in this year’s nationals to be held in Washington, D.C.

The 14-year-old from Jefferson, in Lincoln County, had a formidable opponent, however, who kept her on her paces. The final one-on-one elimination rounds quickly outnumbered the regular rounds that previously had dwindled the 16 county representatives to just the two.

Molly Claire Nichols, 12, of East Machias nearly upset Garthoff’s return visit plans, matching her spelling acuity in 28 of the 29 rounds in which they were pitted against each other. Last year, there were only 32 rounds total, compared to 51 this year.

I-N-T-E-N-S-E was the unspoken word of Saturday’s spelling bee, sponsored by the Bangor Daily News and held at Eastern Maine Technical College.

“I was starting to get a little nervous,” admitted Garthoff, a home-schooled eighth-grader.

She wasn’t alone.

“I was shaking in the beginning, relaxed in the middle, shaking at the end,” said Nichols, who was making her debut in the state bee, while for Garthoff it was her third trip.

Organizers sought early on to alleviate some of the last-minute jitters the students were feeling.

“Smile, enjoy it,” said Monique Bolduc, as the youths lined up outside the room where the spelling bee was conducted. “It’s better than the dentist.”

Intelligent and observant, the spellers came to the state bee with various degrees of preparation as well as their own ways of finding inspiration and staying calm, cool and collected.

All of the county spelling bee winners were given a booklet of the 3,361 words that likely would be used in the competitions. Most received theirs after winning their county bees this winter, while Garthoff had several months head start by purchasing the booklet in November.

Spelling became a daily ritual for some. Garthoff said she would spend an hour a day pouring over the lists while Nichols spent any free moment she could reading the words in the paideia, the big-word list booklet.

Not so for Will French, a resident of Pittsfield who was representing Somerset County at the spelling bee.

“I have a no-study policy,” French asserted, noting that last year he won the school district and county bees with no studying and only studied the day of the state bee last year and came in third place. This year he came in fourth, a posting that may prompt French to revisit his policy. His mother is encouraging him in that direction.

“That’s a definite maybe, isn’t it, buddy,” his mother, Heather Wells, said.

Garthoff turned to prayer during the bee, while Nichols kept family and friends in her mind. In a pocket sewn into the inside of her skirt, Nichols kept a picture and strands of hair from her mother. She also kept a small silver moon and a picture of her friend, both of which she had in an earlier competition.

Did they help? she was asked. “Yeah, I think so.”

As the rounds progressed, the words became more difficult, with 500 words provided for the competition.

In the final rounds, the judges and pronouncer A. Mark Woodward, executive editor of the Bangor Daily News, ratcheted up the competition, bypassing some words to reach more difficult ones.

Like the Federal Reserve, they took a cautious approach at first, jumping from word 220 to 233, but then sensing a greater need, a short time later leaped from word 244 to word 376. Nichols was stopped on word 378.

While there are no lifeline calls, the spellers are allowed to ask for the word to be repeated or defined, or to have its origins described or to have it used in a sentence. In the case of homonyms, the pronouncer provided the definition of the specific word he wanted spelled.

Decisions on correct spellings and on challenges were up to Judges Barbara McDade, director of the Bangor Public Library; Joyce B. Hedlund, president of EMTC; and Kathryn Olmstead, associate professor of journalism at the University of Maine and editor of Echoes Magazine.

The rules had their advantages and disadvantages, as some of the spellers learned. Repeating, defining and having a word used in a sentence could provide more information and, at the very least, more time to formulate the correct answer. But for Nichols, it was a definition that tripped her up. Anglophilia has to do with an admiration of the English or England, which prompted Nichols to spell the word starting with the letter “e.”

In one round, Kai Thaler, representing Cumberland County, took to the podium and pressed his case to Woodward and the judges about whether it was really necessary to be given the definition in the case of homonyms. With no definition, spellers could have two or more words to choose from and potentially a better chance of getting it right.

“What if you don’t want the definition?” Thaler asked, only to be overruled by the judges and Woodward, who determined that definitions were necessary in the case of homonyms. Thaler was eliminated in the 10th round when he spelled the word “marshal” when the judges were looking for the homonym “martial.”