News

Blossomwood Elementary hosted the Rookie Rally Scholastic Chess Tournament where 184 students competed in five different sections on Saturday, January 28, 2017.  Bethany Pauli, Blossomwood's chess team sponsor and enrichment teacher worked tirelessly and into the night Friday to make sure everything would be ready.  The playing area was in the gym, which offered a lot of room.  A big thank you to our host school for doing such a wonderful job!  

The Chief Tournament Director was Bill Nash, who also serves as the Alabama Chess Federation Scholastic Vice President.  Complete tournament results can be found here.

Open K-12 Section

Primary K-3 Section Results

The Primary (K-3) section was once again the largest section with 67 students competing from across North Alabama.  Josh McClellan was the floor TD for this section.  Qualifying for the 2017 City Chess Championship in this section were Isabelle Park from Columbia Elementary and Arnav Maskey from Rainbow Elementary.

Individual top-ten trophy winners were (pictured R to L above):  Karsten Wallace (1st), Xavier Bruni (2nd), Isabelle Park (3rd), Ethan Van (4th), Arnav Maskey (5th), Artem Starenki (6th), Caroline Wang (7th), Cole Spanier (8th), Abhinav Chakrad (9th), Holland Lang (10th).  Tied for 11th and receiving medals were Aadi Saxena, Patrick Dowd, and Cameron Edwards.

Team trophies were awarded to the following teams:  1st place - Rainbow Elementary (17 pts); 2nd place - Horizon Elementary (13 pts); 3rd place Hampton Cove Elementary (12 pts); 4th place - Mill Creek Elementary (11.5 pts); 5th place - Columbia Elementary (11.5 pts).  Primary teams from Heritage and West Madison Elementary accumulated 11 points each and narrowly missed being awarded a team trophy.  Pictured below are the Madison teams that received a team trophy.

1st Place Primary - Rainbow Elementary 

2nd Place Primary - Horizon Elementary

4th place Primary - Mill Creek Elementary

5th place Primary - Columbia Elementary

Elementary (K-6) Section Results

The Elementary section had some of the highest rated players in the entire tournament, so competition was fierce for the last two qualifying spots for the City Chess Championship.  Luke Chynoweth from Rainbow Elementary and Aasim Musani from Madison Elementary qualified by placing in the top two among those who had not previously qualified in another tournament.

Congratulations to the individual winners in the Elementary (K-6) section (pictured above R to L): Victor Lundy -1st; Shreya Sunil - 2nd; Ethan Xu -3rd; Constance Wang - 4th; Luke Chynoweth - 5th; Aasim Musani - 6th; Christopher Kang - 7th (not-pictured); Oviya Gowder - 8th; Rishi Sethuraj - 9th; Christopher Foote -10th; tied for 11th place medals:  Ryan Shurtz, Pranaav Satheesh, and Geon Park.

Team trophies were awarded to the following schools:  1st place - Rainbow Elementary (16 pts); 2nd place - Columbia Elementary (13 pts); 3rd place - Heritage Elementary (9.5 pts); 4th place - Mill Creek Elementary (7 pts); 5th place - Randolph (4 pts).  Madison teams winning trophies are pictured below.

1st place K6- Rainbow Elementary

2nd place K6 - Columbia Elementary

3rd place K6 - Heritage Elementary

4th place K6 - Mill Creek Elementary

Under 500 (4th-6th) Section Results

Congratulations to the individual award winners in the Under 500 section (R to L):  Steven Pan (1st); Mable Danh (2nd); Grattan O'Neill (3rd); Shepard Howley (4th); Howard Tidwell (5th); Shaun Persaud (6th); Corinne Wilhelm (7th); Owen Lang (8th); Isaac Pollard (9th); and Laine Baker (10th).

Team trophies were awarded to the following schools:  1st - Rainbow Elementary; 2nd - Madison Elementary; 3rd - Randolph; 4th - Hampton Cove Elementary; 5th - Blossomwood Elementary.  Madison team winners in this section are pictured below:

1st place U500- Rainbow Elementary

2nd place U500 - Madison Elementary

Junior High (K-9) Section

Congratulations to Hayden Billmann and Ben Kosan from Discovery Middle School who qualified for the 2017 City Chess Championship!

Receiving Individual trophies in the Junior High (K-9) section were (R to L):  Will Fox (1st), Jenson Wilhelm (2nd), Hayden Billmann (3rd), Aubteen Pour-Biazar (4th), and Ben Kosan (5th).  Tied for 5th place medals were:  Edward Calinsky, Will Cox, Carson Boland, Sohan Mynampally, and Luke Saurman.  Discovery and Liberty Middle schools battled it out all day for 1st and 2nd place, with Discovery just edging out Liberty by 1/2 a point.  Covenant Christian Academy finished in 3rd place.

1st place Jr High - Discovery Middle

2nd place Jr High - Liberty Middle

Open K-12 Section Results

1st place team from BJHS

Bob Jones High School won 1st place team in the K-12 Open Section of Rookie Rally, and Grace Billmann qualified for the City Chess Championship.  Covenant Christian Academy won 2nd place team.  Winning individual awards were:  William Spanier (1st), Tyler Wessling (2nd), Preston Smith (3rd), Erin Kueck (4th), and Joseph Quan (5th).