In the end, it was the mountain that got him.

Cooper Lezca, an eighth-grader at the Lurgio Middle School, won school and state level competitions, making it to the preliminary round of the National Geographic Geography Bee in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Geographic Society. Fifty-five students from every state and some of the U.S. territories participated.

“It was really difficult. The questions were a lot harder than the ones at the state level but I felt like I did well,” Lecza said. “I’m glad I got this far, but I wish I would have gone farther.”

At the competition, Lecza was asked to locate Mount Annapurna. His first instinct was Nepal – which turned out to be correct – but Lecza went with India because of how the name sounded. That eliminated him from the finals, which were held May 20.

Eric Yang, a seventh-grader from Texas, ended up taking the top honors in the finals.

This year was the third year in a row that the Bedford middle school has been represented at the national geography bee. In the previous two years, Milan Sandhu competed at the national level, first as a seventh-grader and then as an eighth-grader.

The school curriculum has something to do with their success, said Principal Ed Joyce, but he said a lot of the credit should go to individual students like Lecza.

“Is this a challenging curriculum? You better believe it,” Joyce said. “But he goes the extra mile and that’s why he is where he is. “We’re honored by Cooper,” Joyce added. “He represents us extremely well.”

Joyce, who has known Lecza since he was a sixth-grader, described him as an outgoing teenager and an outstanding student who is well liked by everyone at Lurgio.

“Not only is he respected among his peers, but he’s also highly regarded by the staff in this building,” Joyce said. After winning the school-level competition, Lecza placed first at the state level, earning him a National Geographic Society-funded trip to Washington, D.C., with his mother and his social studies teacher, Geoff Gookin.

“Cooper is very hard-working and does pretty well in school,” Gookin said. At Lurgio, Gookin said geography is studied in the context of social studies classes, but he said a lot of what Lezca knows is self-taught.

Lecza said he had to spend an hour and a half every day for a couple of months to be ready for the bee.

Aside from the bee itself, Lecza also got a chance to tour the nation’s capital, seeing the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Library of Congress, Arlington National Cemetery and other sights. He was also scheduled for a tour of the Capitol Building by U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg.

“It’s been a great time,” Lecza said.