PARIS — An eighth-grader at Oxford Hills Middle School has won a semifinal spot on the television show “Kick Start,” which aims to provide college scholarships to Maine students.

“I won,” said Cordell Leeman of Oxford, who competed in the first round last week and will film the semifinals in the next few weeks for broadcast in late November.

The first round featured 26 other Maine students competing for a $5,000 NextGen College Investing Plan prize.

Leeman was selected for the WPXT trivia game show “Kick Start” last summer after auditioning in the Westbrook studio. The show is intended to be part of a larger initiative aimed at getting seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students thinking about college. The show is described as a sort of “Double Dare” meets “Jeopardy” format, according to producers.

Leeman said there will be three semifinal shows, then the top three winners will move to the finalist show.

Leeman said he was able to bring two of his friends from the Oxford Hills Middle School — Hunter Flanders and Cameron Howard — onto the show to help ask for pledges.

“It was really fun,” Leeman said of the first shows that feature trivia questions and games, such as building a tall building with toothpicks, Popsicle sticks and duct tape.

ldixon@sunjournal.com