Mitch Loflin returned to the Alex Trebek Stage on Monday and walked away with a decisive win—despite a scoring shakeup that briefly had him trailing.
The Long Beach-based set decoration coordinator secured his second consecutive Jeopardy! victory with a final total of $27,300, bringing his two-day haul to $35,700. The episode aired May 19 in syndication.
Loflin was the only contestant to land the correct Final Jeopardy! response—Desdemona—in a DRAMA clue that stumped both of his competitors. That locked in the game before the final buzzer.
But the road there wasn’t exactly smooth. Late in Double Jeopardy!, a scoring reversal on Daily Double 3 gave Loflin a critical boost. The ruling initially favored Catherine Carnovale, a professor and creative producer from Toronto, who had surged ahead before producers corrected a misjudged response.
Carnovale finished in second with $9,199. Third place went to Micah Green, a chemical engineer from College Station, Texas, with $2,199.
Earlier in the game, Green picked up Daily Double 1 with “What is Nova Scotia?” while Loflin added to his tally with “Who was Louis XV?” on Daily Double 2.
Loflin returns Tuesday with momentum—and the kind of sharp gameplay that could make him a name to watch this season.
