"Araphorostic" means to have no seams and Mentor spelling champion Vishnu Nistala was giving a seamless performance at the Scripps National Spelling Bee until he reached that word.

Vishnu -- an eighth grader at Shore Middle School -- had made it to the semifinals, survived the fourth round by spelling "cataphract" and was the last Ohio speller in the bee.

Unfortunately, he fell in a difficult fifth round that knocked out almost 20 semifinalists and will not be in the finals this evening.

Nevertheless, Vishnu had a fantastic run.

He survived a computerized test and two rounds of onstage spelling Wednesday -- he nailed "blitzkrieg" and "stratification" -- to earn one of only 50 spots in today's semifinals.

To make it to the national compeition in Washington D.C., Vishnu won the district- and county-wide bees before beating the best of Geauga and Ashtabula counties in a 40-round marathon tri-county bee.