Benet Academy, Whitney Young 1-2 Atop 12th Grade Nationals, Max Zinski Wins 2014 K-12 Blitz Championship

By the slimmest of margins, one-half of one point, Lisle-based Benet Academy won the USCF National Grade 12 Championships in Orlando, FL at the competition completed December 14.

Benet's Max Zinski and Nate Kranjc both contributed 5.0/7 scores as they both tied for 5th place in the 66-player section. Grant Zozeny contributed a critical 4.0 score to round out the team result.

Whitney Young's Jimi Akintonde also participated in the 7-way tie for fifth place with his own 5.0 result. Oliver Natarajan chimed in with 4.5 -- good for a 12th place tie -- and Linden Kerr added 4.0 to the team tally.

All totalled, nine Illinois entrants placed in the top 10 of the main event's 13 sections. Over 1500 players competed in the three day event.

In the K-12 Blitz, Max was the outright champion with a 10/12 score. Jimi placed in a three-way tie for second, a half-point back with a 9.5 result. Nate and Whitney Young's Phillip Parker-Turner were a half-point back in an 8-way tie for 5th place.  Unfortunately, New York's Stuyvesant edged Whitney Young on tiebreaks to earn top honors in the team blitz, both with 25.5 scores. Benet was a half-point back at 25.0 to take third, well ahead of the fourth place team from Florida.

Stephen Horvath contributed a 7.0/12 in the blitz to the Whitney Young total while Matthew De Mario added 6.0 points to the Benet team score in the K-12 blitz. With just two of the possible scores, Akhil and Nikhil Kalghatgi each provided 7.5 scores to their own team. If only they had been triplets instead of twins! Still their 15.0 combined score was good enough for 8th place against largely older competition.

94 competed in the Blitz with 14 multi-player teams in the hunt.

In the main event's First Grade competition, Dimitar Mardov and Alex Zhao placed in a six-way tie for second place with 6.0/7 scores. Alex of Avery Coonley and Dimitar of Eisenhower Elementary received third and fourth place hardware respectively due to tiebreaks.

In the 2nd Grade section, Mann School's (Oak Park) Arthur Xu tied for second with five others, taking the second place trophy with the top tiebreak. Arthur was 6.0/7. Zalan Gyorgy notched a 4.0 score, tying for 42nd.

Akhil and Nikhil both placed in the top 10 of the 8th Grade Championship; Ahkil's 5.5 tied him for fourth place (5th on tiebreaks) while Nikhil finished a half-point back with 5.0, good for the top tiebreak in the 5.0 scoregroup which tied for 9th place. Together the two tied for 8th place in the team competition (9th on tiebreaks) despite having only two of the permissible three scorers. If another eighth grader had joined them and finished with 4.5, the trio might have tied for first place.

Ricky Wang tied for fifth place in the 6th grade section with a 5.5 tally. Ricky, of Meridian Middle School of Buffalo Grove, earned the 8th place trophy on tiebreaks.

Amongst the 7th grade field, Jeremy Margolin went 4.0 to tie for 33rd place, 43rd on tiebreaks.

5th Grader Jonah Karafiol and Aria Hoesley both scored 4.5 to finish tied for 31st. Their tiebreaks placed them 47th and 50th respectively.

Among 4th Graders, Nicholas Ladan had the top Illinois finish with 4.5, tying for 35th place, 44th on tiebreaks. 

3rd Grade San Fayn's 4.5 earned him the top tiebreak in his scoregroup, and 33rd place honors. 

Among 67 competitors, Illinois did not send a kindgergartner to compete.

In addition to its second place finish in the 12th grade competition, Whitney Young placed 7th in the 11th grade section with 11.5, only one point less than the fourth place finisher. The Young squad was paced by Phillip Parker-Turner who tied for 13th place with 4.5 (16th on tiebreaks), losing to the eventual champion Joshua Colas of New York in the second round.  Stephen Horvath and Chris Rupprecht both finished with 3.5's, tying for 28th place amongh 64 competitors.

Young also finished sixth (out of 10 teams) in the 10th grade section with a 6.5 tally. 

Results can be viewed here. USCF Crosstables are viewable here.