Winner declared in rematch of marathon spelling bee

(CNN) -- The d-e-f-i-n-i-t-i-o-n of a good spelling bee may have forever changed in Missouri.

It took seventh grader Kush Sharma more than 90 rounds and two days to finally get the winning word.

He beat fifth grader Sophia Hoffman, who went out on the word 'stifling,' for a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The two met a month earlier at the Kansas City Public Library for the regularly scheduled competition, where they exhausted all the words on a list provided to the judges.

After more than 60 rounds the rematch was called.

'We didn't want to just go through the dictionary and give them more words. We feared that someone would get a word that was too easy while the other would get an extremely difficult word. We wanted to be a bit more calculated and neutral, and we wanted to give each an equal opportunity,' Mary Olive Thompson, outreach coordinator for Kansas City Public Library, said at the time.

Saturday's rematch drew a crowd and the library had to provide a live stream to about 100 spectators in the lobby, Thompson said.

'We anticipate similar circumstances next year since both students are young enough -- they could face each other again,' she said, admitting that the end of the marathon bee was emotional.

'We got to know the kids; they are both great kids. This is not the last we are going to see of Sophia,' she said.

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