Frank Cahill, 14, was knocked out of the competition when he misspelled the word "porwigle." He spelled it with two "g's" instead of one.

Snigdha Nandipati, 14, of San Diego, wins the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee about an hour after Cahill was eliminated.

Cahill had advanced to the semifinals on Wednesday evening after spelling frangible and ephemeral correctly.

He advanced to the finals on Thursday by correctly spelling drosophila in round four, cannelon in round five and guilloche in round six. The finals are being carried live at 6 p.m. Colorado time on ESPN.

Eva Kitlen, 13, of Niwot, spelled genre and utile correctly in round two, but did not make the semifinals, based on her score from a computerized spelling test.

Cahill's Biography

Cahill is an eighth-grader at Ave Maria Catholic School in Parker. He plays violin in the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra along with piano.Frank Cahill getting swamped by press as he exits the Scripps Spelling Bee stage.

Cahill is a 4.0 honor roll student, a Boy Scout and was a Colorado state finalist in the MATHCOUNTS National Competition in 2011 and 2012.

Cahill participates in theater and has played the lead roles in "Dracula" and "Oliver Twist." He is also a defenseman on the Parker Hawks lacrosse team and a member of the varsity basketball team at his school.

In his spare time, Cahill likes sculpting and reading.

Bee Competition

The 2012 bee started on Tuesday with a computerized spelling test of 50 words. Only half of the answers counted toward each speller's preliminaries score. The computerized test score was combined with the results of rounds two and three to determine the semifinalists.

The semifinals were held Thursday morning. The championship finals are Thursday night.

Learn more about the competition on the Spelling Bee website.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company, the parent company of Denver's 7.