AUBURN – Nathanial Hernandez, Auburn Middle School student, has been named runner-up in the 2007 Maine Geographic Bee.

After winning the Auburn Middle School Geographic Bee on Jan. 4, Hernandez took a qualifying test, which was submitted to the National Geographic Society.

Students with the top 100 scores were invited to compete in the 2007 Maine Geographic Bee on March 30 in Orono and Hernandez was among them, representing Auburn for his third straight year as a semifinalist at the state level.

Staff said it proved to be his best performance yet, and was also the best performance of any Auburn Middle School student who has competed in the state bee.

For the preliminary round, the 100 competitors from grades four through eight were divided into five groups of 20 students. After eight questions were answered by all of the students in each group, the 10 students with the most correct answers moved on to the final round.

Hernandez was the only student in his group with a perfect round, answering all questions correctly, which advanced him to the final round. Auburn Middle School has had numerous representatives at the state bee over the years, but Hernandez is the first to advance to the final.

In that round of 10 students, the students were eliminated when two incorrect answers were given, until only two students remained. A lengthy showdown took place among the last three students. They were asked numerous questions, before Hernandez and Jack Walsh of Yarmouth became the last two standing. Each made only one error, and they prepared themselves for the championship round.

During the championship round, the same three questions were asked of the two finalists. The student who answered the most correctly would be the 2007 Maine Geographic Champion. At the end of the round, the two finished in a tie, which moved them into a tie-breaker.

The tie-breaker consisted of the same questions asked of both, with a single elimination rule in effect. The first student to make an error was named the runner-up. Several questions were asked before it finally came to an end with Hernandez shaking the hand of Walsh, the champion.

Hernandez hopes to represent Auburn Middle School again next year as an eighth-grader to try to beat his personal best one more time and to represent Maine in the 2008 National Geographic Bee. The seventh-grader is the son of Joe and Paula Hernandez.