Whitney Young was playing without likely 4th board Donovan Harris (sr- above). Still I fully expected Whitney Young to beat Naperville North.
Whitney Young is not invulnerable. With practically everyone returning from last year including a state champion in board 1 (Michael Auger) and probably the state's best freshman in Sam Schmankel at board #2, I expected Whitney Young to roll through all of their tournaments including the Glenbard South Raider Tournament. They did crush opponents in the first 3 rounds with easy victories over Waubonsee Valley, Nequa Valley, and Niles West. But they lost 37.5 to 30.5 to eventual 2nd place finisher Naperville North.
Here is the Whitney Young vs Naperville North result looked liked for the first 4 boards:
Board 1: Michael Auger (sr) -Whitney Young defeated Kevin Kang (jr) - Naperville North
Board 2: Anuj Dahiya (jr) - Naperville North defeated Sam Schmakel (fr)- Whitney Young
Board 3: Zach Coffman (sr) - Naperville North defeated Charles Swan (so) - Whitney Young
Board 4: Kessidy Chan (sr) - Whitney Young drew Stephen Gaggiano (sr) - Naperville North
As expected Michael Auger beat Kang at board 1. The stunners came at boards 2 and 3. Unheralded Anuj Dahiya upset Schmakel at board 2. I say upset because I regard Schmakel as one of the top freshman in the state and playing baord #2 for Whitney Young says something. Whereas Dahiya was a board 8 player for Naperville North's 28th place state team last year. Zach Coffman was also a board #8 player last year and he beat Swan - Whitney Young's 3 board. To go from being board 8 to beating players of the caliber of Schmakel and Swan really tells me of the development and depth of the Naperville North program. By the way Stephen Gaggiano of drew against Chan of Whitney Young at Board 4. Gaggiano was also a board 8 player for Naperville North last year.
As a side note, for those of you who say that chess players are not athletes (most are not), one exception is Zach Coffman of Naperville North. Coffman is on Naperville North's cross country team and I hear he can run about a 5:30 mile.
Defending state champion Niles North won the tournament with a perfect 4-0 record beating Naperville North on tiebreaker points.
The CPS city chess championship is this Saturday at the CPS Sports Academy on 35th street.
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