Madison chess teams dominate at state championship

MADISON – At the 2019 Alabama State Scholastic Chess Championship, Madison teams dominated in every section, winning the championship trophy in Primary, Elementary, Middle and High School divisions.

Madison players travelled to Miles College in Fairfield on March 2-3 for the championship. State Sen. Tom Butler, State Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon and State Rep. Mike Ball provided a grant to Madison City Chess League for travel expenses to the state meet and upcoming national tournament.

Team coaches included FM Bradley Denton, Will Stevenson, David Hayes, Jonathan Rasberry and Corbin Holland. Chess team sponsors Nancy Brandon and Whitney Collins also attended.

“We want to thank our parents for donating food and supplies throughout the weekend and traveling to Fairfield to give their kids a chance to compete on the state level,” Ranae Bartlett said. Bartlett is Executive Director of Madison City Chess League or MCCL.

In the K-12 School division, Bob Jones High School Blue Team ranked as first-place champions with Will Bao, Coach Bradley Denton, Josh Lin, Jenson Wilhelm and Michael Guthrie. MCCL K-12 Club Team with Sohan Mynampall, Will Fox, Om Badhe, Coach Bradley Denton and Julian Olvera claimed first place.

Individual winners for high school were Zachary Snow, first; in tiebreak order, Will Fox, Om Badhe, Joel Friedman, Michael Guthrie, Josh Lin and Kapil Nathan.

Numerous other Madison students won honors at the state meet:

* Middle School Champions — Discovery Middle School, first, Steven Pan, Constance Wang, Victor Lundy and Henry Holland.

* Junior High Championship, Individual Winners — Sarvagna Velidandla, first; Sai Korrapati, second; in tiebreak order, Shreya Sunil, Ethan Xu, Victor Lundy and Constance Wang.

* Elementary Team Championship — Rainbow Elementary School’s Blue Team, first place, Karsten Wallace, Xavier Bruni, Artem Starenki and Marek Fries.

* Primary (K-3) Champions — Rainbow Red Team, first, Blaise Bruni, Sarah Rydbom, Holland Lang and Noah Hsu.

* Primary Individual Winners – Heritage Elementary School third-grader Laya Gowder was crowned the Primary (K-3) Champion in the individual event. Taking home other honors were Alex Zhu; Anna Ai; Blaise Bruni; in tiebreak order, Holland Lang, Noah Hsu, Samsara Rajbhandari, Jethro Jones, Asher Kovacs, Tim Lee and Shravan Balaji.