Contact: Peter Hopkins
804-262-4167
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Four hundred fifty students, ranging in age from six to eighteen, converged on Forest Park High School in Woodbridge over the weekend of March 10 - 11 to compete in the Virginia Scholastic Chess Championships. Sixty eight teams were represented in the tournament which was divided by grade levels into four sections.
The largest single contingent of twenty five players represented Northern Virginia�s Governor�s School for Science and Technology which claimed first place team honors in the high school (K-12) section. Richmond�s Governor�s School for Government and International Studies placed fourth and Henrico County�s Mills Godwin High School sixth among the section�s twelve teams.
In the middle schools (K-8) section, the team from Henrico County�s G. H. Moody Middle School came from behind to win the first place trophy. Trailing by one half match point at the end of the fourth round, the Raiders, a pre-tournament favorite, charged ahead and after the final round were three match points ahead of runner-up James Madison Combined Middle School from Roanoke. Chesterfield County�s Manchester Middle School team, competing in its first state championship, finished in the middle of the field as five of its eight players scored three out of six match points each.
Chesterfield County�s Swift Creek Elementary School captured the first place team trophy in the elementary (K-5) section edging out Fairfax County�s Louise Archer Elementary 19.0 to 17.5. Kent Gardens Elementary, also from Fairfax County and last year�s team champions, placed third with 17 match points. Henrico County�s Lakeside Elemenatry was sixth.
The Primary (K-3) section created a lot of excitement when Kent Gardens� Aryan Khojandi squared off in the last round against Primary Schools National Champion Micah Corcoran from Roanoke�s Fishburn Park Elementary. With the team championship on the line, Khojandi won the game and Kent Gardens won the team title with a score of 18.5 to Fishburn Park�s 17.5. The third place team trophy went to Richmond Montessori and fourth place to the primary team from Chesterfield�s Swift Creek Elementary.