In her fourth time competing in the regional spelling bee, 13-year-old Danielle Serrao finally punched her ticket Tuesday night to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The eighth-grader from Hunterdon County outlasted 42 competitors from four counties, through 17 rounds, to win the inaugural Discover Lehigh Valley Regional Spelling Bee, at Northampton Community College.

The Express-Times and lehighvalleylive.com had sponsored the regional final in previous years.

Danielle will go on to represent Lehigh, Northampton, Warren and Hunterdon counties at the national bee scheduled May 22-27 in National Harbor, Maryland.

"I have to owe it to my mom because she is my mentor and she has stuck with me the whole time," said Danielle, who was joined Tuesday night by her family from Whitehouse Station in Readington Township: mom Matilda Serrao, dad Dominic Serrao and her 9-year-old brother, Christopher Serrao.

Also rooting for her in the audience was her gifted-and-talented teacher at Readington Middle School, Emily Bengels, whom Danielle refers to as her Auntie Em.

"She's a special one," Bengels said as Danielle held her trophy for photographs on the sunken stage of Lipkin Theatre at the college in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania.

Danielle had been runner-up at the 2014 regional bee while in sixth grade and placed fifth twice, as a fifth- and seventh-grader.

For four rounds Tuesday night, she shared the stage with five runners-up for 2016: Vaishnavi Joshi, of Springhouse Middle School in the Parkland School District; Samyutka Neeraj, of Easton Area Middle School 7-8; Gabriela Maria Paredes, of Blairstown Elementary School; Ali Rizwan, of Easton Area Middle School 5-6; and Erica Wang, of Joseph P. Liberati Intermediate School in the Southern Lehigh School District.

But in the 17th round, Danielle's final competition fell in order: Vaishnavi to acquisitive; Samyutka to convalesce; Gabriela to battalion; Ali to inveterate; and Erica to lumen.

Danielle spelled one last word flawlessly to bring home the championship, at last: idiasm, an individual mannerism.

Africa's fifth-largest cat had nearly tripped up Danielle earlier, she allowed.

"When I had serval, I was confused for a minute," said Danielle, who said she's been studying three to four hours a week to get ready for the regional bee.

Tuesday night's bee will be broadcast on Service Electric TV2 at 8 p.m. Wednesday and 7 p.m. Friday.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.