WASHINGTON -- A New Jersey veteran making her fifth appearance won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday.

After seven rounds of head-to-head battle, Katharine "Kerry" Close, a 13-year-old eighth-grader from Spring Lake, beat out Finola Hackett, 14, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to bring the championship title to New Jersey.

Close will take home more than $42,000 in cash and prizes. She is the first-ever winner from the Garden State.

Close correctly spelled "kundalini" in the 19th round, but Hackett incorrectly spelled "weltschmerz." After spelling "Ursprache" in the 20th round, Close was named the national spelling champion.

Close, an eighth-grader at the H.W. Mountz School in Spring Lake, is the first girl since 1999 to win the national spelling title. She stepped back from the microphone and put her hands to her mouth upon being declared the winner.

The only New Jersey student remaining after the fifth round of the contest, Close survived the written portion of the bee and in later rounds correctly spelled "tmesis," "izzat," "kanone," "aubade," "psittacism," "recrementitious," "clinamen," "hukilau," "Shedu," "towhee," "synusia," "cucullate," "terrene," "Bildungsroman," "chiragra," "Galilean" and "gobemouche."

After the elimination of John Tamplin of Louisville, Ky., in the fifth round, Close was the sole five-time repeater left in the contest. She had tied for seventh place in the 2005 bee, where she was eliminated in the tenth round.

The New Jersey speller with the second-highest run was Franklin Township native Serenity An-An Fung, 13, who incorrectly spelled "alcazar" in the fifth round. The word means a Spanish fortress or palace.

Four other New Jersey spellers were eliminated Wednesday during the first day of competition.

A total of 275 spellers, the largest number in the 79-year-old competition's history, started in the event Wednesday. The competition began Wednesday with a 25-word, multiple-choice test and a round of oral spelling.

The combined scores were used to narrow the field of 275 fourth- through eighth-graders to the top 97 spellers.

From there, 46 spellers aced such words as "tychopotamic," "monochromatic" and "malihini" to land a spot in the finals.

But 51 others stumbled on such words as "bonspiel," "whippoorwill" and "recumbentibus."

Spelling bees have become more prominent in pop culture thanks to publicity from the Oscar-nominated documentary "Spellbound," and the new feature-length film, "Akeelah and the Bee."

There were 139 boys and 136 girls from the 50 states, U.S. territories and many countries around the world competing at the onset.

The contestants ranged in age from 9 to 15. They survived local competitions in their various states to qualify for the prestigious national competition.

Most of the spellers, 71 percent, attend public schools.

About 14 percent go to private schools, 13 percent are home-schooled and 9 percent attend parochial schools.

There were two spellers who made their fifth trip to the national spelling bee.

Thirteen spellers made their third appearance and 48 returned for a second trip.

Last year's spelling champ, Anurag Kashyap, 13, of Poway, Calif., won in the 19th round by correctly spelling the word "appoggiatura," a musical term.

He beat out 272 other spellers to take home some $30,000 in prizes.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation's largest and longest running educational promotion.

The purpose of the National Spelling Bee is to help students improve spelling, increase vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all of their lives.

On the Net:

Scripps National Spelling Bee: http://www.spellingbee.com