Jon and Joyce Liu are siblings. They fought through hundreds of words Friday before she won the Lowndes County Schools spelling bee.

VALDOSTA — History was made Friday when two siblings went head to head and exhausted all 375 words available at the Lowndes County Schools spelling bee.

Joyce Liu, last year’s reigning champion, battled it out with her brother, Jon, for the coveted title and spot at the district spelling bee.

The spelling bee started with 20 students. The participants went through 284 words before the final two were left standing.

Beginning with words like “yes” and “lion,” the event escalated to such words as “heuristic” and “cygnet.”

After the third-place winner, fourth-grader Henry Corbitt of Moulten Branch Elementary School, missed his word, only the Liu siblings remained.

This came as no surprise to many as the duo were also the last two standing in the 2014 competition.

The surprise came when Assistant Lowndes County School Superintendent Rodney Green stood on stage and informed everyone that a historic moment has taken place. The Liu siblings managed to complete all 375 words given for the competition.

Being faced with something that had never previously happened, the judges agreed to choose 20 words from the dictionary. As the crowd waited in anticipation, the words were chosen and numbers were written on slips of paper to correspond with each word.

Joyce and Jon then went back and forth picking numbers and being given their words.

Jon, a fifth grader, thought he’d finally beaten his big sister when she slipped up on the word “xenophobia.” As he pointed at his sister with a smile, he went up for his word “capricious” but unfortunately missed it as well.

After an almost three-hour battle, Jon missed the word “synonymous,” leaving Joyce an opportunity to swoop in for the win.

Eighth-grader Joyce spelled “naiveté” correctly then won by spelling the word “quiescent.”

As she won, Joyce patted her little brother on the head.

Their mother, Li-Mei Chen, shared that both siblings help each other at home and that Jon has learned from his sister, giving him a larger vocabulary bank.

“I really feel very sorry for the audience for having to wait so long,” laughed Chen.