Rainbow, Discovery chess teams win state championships
Chess players from Madison won numerous awards at the 2015 State Chess Championship in Mobile. (CONTRIBUTED)
MADISON – Teams from Rainbow elementary and Discovery middle schools won the 2015 State Chess Championship in Mobile on March 14-15.
“Rainbow brought home numerous trophies, including both first and second place in the elementary section and third in the primary section. Discovery won in the junior high section,” Ranae Bartlett said.
Discovery team members are Michael Guthrie, Erin Kueck, William Spanier and Douglas Zhang. Bradley Denton and Don Maddox coach middle school chess teams.
The tournament “was a weekend of firsts for our chess program as our kids continued to raise the bar in competition chess for the State of Alabama,” Bartlett said.
At this tournament, Bartlett and Bill Nash coached K-6 elementary teams. Noel Newquist coached K-3 and Madison City Chess League teams.
In the elementary (K-6) section, “the reigning state champs not only did it again and won first-place team, but another Rainbow team came in second place,” Bartlett said. The Rainbow Green team of Hayden Billmann, Edward Calinsky, Alex Edwards and Jonah Tuttle achieved a perfect 4-point team score, winning all matches to be declared state champions.
The Rainbow Blue team of Will Bao, Boone Ramsey, Constance Wang and Jenson Wilhelm achieved 3.5 points to place a close second.
In primary (K-3), the Rainbow Red team of Zachary Calinsky, Simon Fellows, Geon Park and Karsten Wallace produced the first state trophy in Rainbow history for this age group by winning third place. “All of these students are first- and second-graders, so they’ll return next year to compete in the same section at state,” Bartlett said.
Rainbow students also won more individual awards than ever before. In primary, Geon Park took third place and Zachary Calinsky was fifth. For elementary (K-6 under 600), Victor Lundy earned second place. In elementary (K-6), Jonah Tuttle was third-place winner.
Rainbow will compete at the National Junior High Championship in Louisville, Ky. on April 24-26 and the National Elementary Championship in Nashville on May 8-10.
