Illinois Chess Bulletin Julio - Agosto 2002

Illinois High School Championship Maine South Wins Illinois High School Championship Kevin L. Bachler Robert Riddle. Robert Rasmussen. Dan Leung. Brett Collins. Erik Maye. Mark Rokita. John Piergalski. William Bielski. Ed Mueller. Dan Widing. From 1995 through 2002 these players have played on grade school, middle school, and high school teams together. During that time, they have won 6 state championships, 2 major national championships, 1 minor national championship. At one time their team won 22 consecutive regional tournaments. With Dan Leung and Dan Widing coming into Maine South this year, adding both strength and depth, the team rolled through a good season. They went 27-1 in conference and tournament team match play, and won the NSCL conference. We felt that our primary competition at state would come from our own conference. New Trier and Evanston were both strong teams. Glenbrook South was the only team to defeat us during the year, and we knew they could do it again. But the team that had us the most concerned represented the unknown. We had not faced Niles North during the year, and with Yelena and Andrey Gorlin on the top two boards, with an improving Ben Wallenberg on board 3, we knew that they could be a formidable team. These suspicions turned out to be correct as the NSCL dominated the final standings. Maine South got off to a good start, and our confidence grew as defeated the Illinois Math and Science Academy in round 2. We continued to be undefeated, and after round 5, only 3 undefeated teams remained, all from the NSCL conference: Maine South, Niles North, and New Trier. Round 6 saw the pairing that many coaches had hoped to see, Maine South versus Niles North. And the match did not disappoint. Several coaches commented that this was the best match they had seen in the state championship in 10 years. 42 It was an exceptionally hard-fought match. I believe that no results occurred within 1 hour and 45 minutes of the start of the match, and many games lasted into th

Illinois Chess Bulletin Julio - Agosto 2002 | Page 42