Kennedy Middle Wins K-8 Nationals

Kennedy team: Cameron, Pranav, Neel, Udit and Kesav, photo by Rob Wheeler.

Congratulations to the National K-8 Champions from Kennedy Middle School in Cupertino!!  With a final margin of 4.5 points ahead of the nearest competition, the team practically wrapped up top honors one round before the end.  Always hungry for more, the young Cougars bravely clawed through the top of the leaderboard.  Alas, they could not grab a share of the individual title.

Nonetheless, Kennedy earned four of the top 15 place trophies.  Udit Iyengar led the way with 3rd place at 6.0 out of 7.  Kesav Viswanadha and Cameron Wheeler took 7th and 8th, respectively, at 5.5.  Last, but not least, two-time CalChess K-8 winner Neel Apte scored 5.0, unfortunately falling to both of the national co-champions.

Five other Bay Area juniors also finished in the top 20 of the K-8 section, for a grand total of nine individual awards and two big team trophies!  Amazingly, Horner Junior High School in Fremont was the second best team in K-8.  Led by Daniel Ho at 13th place with 5.5, the Horner team muscled its way past IS 318 in the last two rounds.  Way to go!!

Finally, kudos to Colin Chow of Sacramento for a strong result in the K-9 division.  He beat one master, drew two more and lost just once, unfortunately on board 3 in the final round.

Check out Chess Life Online and CalChess for a pair of additional reports written by Randy Hough and Alan Kirshner, respectively.

Northern California Final Results 

K-9 Championship

• Colin Chow 5.0 - 7th place
• Vignesh Panchanatham 4.5 
• Hemang Jangle 4.5
• Taylor McCreary 4.0
• Russell Bik 3.5 

K-8 Championship

• Udit Iyengar (Kennedy) 6.0 - 5th place
• Kesav Viswanadha (Kennedy) 5.5 - 7th place
• Cameron Wheeler (Kennedy) 5.5 - 8th place
• Gabriel Bick 5.5 - 11th place
• Daniel Ho (Horner) 5.5 - 13th place
• Neel Apte (Kennedy) 5.0 - 15th place
• Allan Beilin 5.0 - 17th place
• Art Zhao 5.0 - 18th place
• Naveen Janarthanan 5.0 - 19th place
• Pranav Srihari (Kennedy) 4.5
• Kory Hui (Horner) 4.5
• Sameer Vijay 4.5
• Audrey Zhao 4.5
• Amit Sant 4.0
• Vikram Vasan 4.0
• Amarinder Chahal (Horner) 4.0
• KENNEDY M.S. TEAM 22.0/28 - NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
• HORNER J.H.S. TEAM 17.5/28 - 2nd place