News

Local school chess teams from elementary, middle and high school came together to compete at the North Alabama Team Scholastic Chess Tournament (NATS).  We are grateful to State Representatives Mac McCutcheon and Mike Ball for sponsoring the tournament and to Bob Jones High School for agreeing to host this event now in its third year.  FM Bradley Denton was the Chief Tournament Director, and he was assisted by Josh McClellan and Nitin Badhe.  Photos were taken by Scott Wilhelm.

NATS gives our local school teams the opportunity to practice playing in the 4x4 team format that will be used to declare the top teams at State.  The tournament also gives area chess coaches the opportunity to move players around and see how they perform on different boards.  Four-person teams are arranged with the top rated player on Board 1, second-highest rated player on Board 2, and so on.  Schools with large chess teams have more flexibility in arranging players among multiple teams.  

Local registrants for the NATS received a great advantage by playing at Bob Jones High School--the same venue for the upcoming State Scholastic Chess Championship. We have said it before--if you can compete in Madison, you can compete very well at the State level. We are ready! 

Junior High Section

The toughest battle throughout the day occurred in the Junior High Division.  "We are seeing an increase in the number of competitive players in both middle and high school in Madison," said Ranae Bartlett, Executive Director of the Madison City Chess League.  This is a departure from the rest of the nation.  The increase in Madison is due to growing elementary school programs, placing two of our most experienced coaches--Paul Mulqueen and Bill Nash--at each middle school, and offering chess electives during the day at both Liberty and Discovery middle schools.

Liberty Middle had two teams compete and Discovery Middle sent three teams.  These middle school teams are the best in the State, and they appear ready to do very well in the State Scholastic Chess Championship.  At the end of the tournament Saturday, LMS Black team, DMS Teal team, and DMS White team were in a three-way tie for 1st place accumulating the same number of team match points and all drawing with each other in head-to-head match ups.

Left:  LMS Black team versus DMS Black team.  Right: DMS Teal team versus DMS White team.

NATS Results

Primary (K-3) Section

1. Rainbow Red Team (Karsten Wallace, Caroline Wang, Marek Fries, Arnav Maskey) - 3.5 pts

2. Rainbow Blue  Team (Xavier Bruni, Landon Drummond, Cameron Edwards, Monica Chynoweth) - 3.5 pts

3. West Madison (Haley Clark, Pranav Gentela, Konnor Hobbs, Brayden Webley) - 2.5 pts

4. Columbia Elementary (Isabelle Park, Songla Lee, Janardhan Vasireddy, Joseph Park) - 2.0 pts

5. Horizon Elementary (Cole Spanier, Mark Allison, Alex Fedoseyev, Lily Harper, Nirvana Rajbhandari) - 1.5 pts

Top Female Team:  Mill Creek Pink Team (Sahithi Mynampally, Anaya Naphade, Shriya Sethuraj, Isabel Xu) - 1.5 pts  (tied for 5th)

Elementary (K-6) Section

1. Rainbow Gold Team (Constance Wang, Victor Lundy, Geon Park, Zachary Calinsky) - 4 pts

2. Mill Creek Red Team (Ethan Xu, Rishi Sethuraj, Pranav Somu, Wyatt Devine) - 3.0 pts

3. Rainbow Diamond Team (Kenenedy Gore, Amy Park, Rachael Ehrman, Amelia Dobbs) - Top Female Team - 3 pts

4. Rainbow Silver Team (Ryan Shurtz, Luke Chynoweth, Ethan Kueck, Jonathan Yang) - 2.5 pts

5. Madison Blue Team (Aasim Musani, Steven Pan, Shruti Kadam, Arjunsing Gaikwad) - 2.0 pts

5. Mill Creek White Team (Harsha Matta, Cameron Baker, Alex Povorozniuc, Liam O'Sullivan) - 2.0 pts

Junior High (K-9) Section

1. DMS Teal Team (Josh Lin, Jenson Wilhelm, Hayden Billmann, Aubteen Pour-Biazar) - 3.0 pts

2. LMS Black Team (Om Badhe, Will Fox, Sohan Mynampally, Carson Bolandd) - 3.0 pts

3. DMS White Team (Will Bao, Will Cox, Maanasi Limaye, Edward Calinsky) - 3.0 pts

Open (K-12) Section

1. Bob Jones Blue Team (Michael Guthrie, Douglas Zhang, Erin Kueck, Grace Billmann) - 1.5 pts

2. Covenant Christian Academy (Joseph Quan, Sam Fellows, Kate Kornegay, Zachary Bardon) - 1.5 pts

3. Bob Jones Red Team (Mark Skrabanek, Hugh Mitchell, Aneesha Ankam) - .5 pts