Shreya Mangalam Ties for 1st at the SPF Girls Invitational

Illinois' official representative to the 15th Annual Susan Polgar Foundation Girls Invitational did not come home empty handed!

Warren Junior Scholar Shreya Mangalam won the right to attend the prestigious event through the ICA's Youth Invitational this spring.... and she made the most of the opportunity.

Shreya won her four first rounds and drew the last two matches to wind up in a five-way tie for first place.... the only non-titled combatant in the top five (four were WFM's and one was a WIM).

In fact, Shreya drew WIM Than Thuy Nguyen of Arizona in the last round to secure her co-championship.

 With this success, the Barrington High Schooler has won $57,500 in scholarships to Webster University in St. Louis -- which hosted the competition -- and $1500 in cash prizes.

Illinois' Marissa Li was also allowed to compete -- and she did very well herself, winning four matches and finishing with 4.0, good for ninth place out of 60 entrants.

All totaled, $320,000 in scholarships and cash prizes were distributed in the competition completed July 26.  Next year's event is already scheduled for June 22-27, 2019.