A team of Roland Park Middle School pupils topped those from 23 other Baltimore schools and will represent the city next week in the National Academic League Championships.

In the final yesterday, Roland Park's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders bested Chinquapin Middle School 95 to 34. They correctly spelled "misdemeanor," identified each element of the acronym "NATO" and answered "Brazil" as the country that produces the most coffee, in the hourlong battle of wits televised on the city schools' cable channel.

Twice-monthly preliminary competitions are a "much more sophisticated form of 'Jeopardy!' " and have been held since November for teams from across the city, according to Bonnie Legro, NAL commissioner.

"We tend to get some of the brightest kids in the school," Legro said.

Pupils must be willing to study and practice two to three times a week.

"It's one of the few things we have that really embraces academics," said Shannon Katona, the mother of Roland Park team member Andrew Katona.

Thirty-two teams from across the country will begin competing next week in the national contest -- mostly through video conferencing so that they don't have to travel. Both Roland Park and Chinquapin will compete.

Roland Park's first bout will be March 11 against a junior high school from Davis County, Utah. The Rams are tentatively scheduled to participate from the Kinko's Video Conferencing Center at White Marsh.

Last year, Roland Park was one of the final eight teams to compete in the national championship. "This year, we'd like to see if we can go further, to the final four," said eighth-grader Eric Young.

Eighth-grader Andrew Katona said he has great expectations: "This year, we're just pretty much steamrolling over the competition."

Pub Date: 3/04/99