53 teams and 367 players competed in the December 19 YCFC tournament at De La Salle Institute, a stone's throw from Sox Park on the south side of Chicago.

The five-round, five-section event was co-hosted by George Dzuricsko of De La Salle and Kelli Moore of St. Columbanus and once again organized by Mike Cardinale.

Aria Hoesley of Decatur Classical blew away the Advanced Section with a perfect five-for-five. Daniel Zhang was a half-point back at 4.5. The Advanced drew a record 58 entrants.

A five-way tie for third place at 4.0 included Avi Kaplan, Joey Buklis, Jiajun Yan, Minh-An Thomas and Chris Gora, with Avi earning the third place trophy on tiebreaks.

Aria's score helped Decatur separate from the pack and win the Advanced team trophy with 12.5. Whitney Young posted 10.5 to place second, ahead of Bateman (10.0), Lane Tech (10.0) and Skinner North (9.5). 

58 also competed in the Novice Grades 7-8 with teammates Lizzy Brahin and Rex Shohanaki of Ogden School both posting perfect 5.0's. Lizzy claimed the top trophy on tiebreaks. There was a seven-way tie for third place with Rahul Ravisundar earning the top tiebreak to claim third-place hardware. 

By the narrowest of margins two teams actually out-pointed Ogden which earned the third place trophy with 13.0. Earle STEM and Kinzie both tallied 13.5's with Earle compiling the higher tiebreak to claim the 7-8 championship.

Samantha Glowacki lead the Kinzie squad with a 4.0 (earning the 5th place trophy). Earle was lead by Barbara Makowski and Joshua Johnson, both with 4.0's. Barbara earned the 4th place trophy on tiebreaks while Joshua claimed the sixth place hardware.

A whopping 117 competed in the Novice 5-6, yielding three perfect scores: Jana Zivanovic (1st), Sreeansh Vakiti (2nd) and Tim Granatowksi (3rd).

Edgebrook (16.5) edged Oriole Park (16.0) and Bateman (15.5) for the 5-6 team championship.

78 players fought it out in Novice 3-4 competition producing a single perfect score from Henry Guo. Lenart teammate Joshua Liu took second with 4.5, earning the better tiebreak over Nathan Caropreso.

Lenart ran away with the 3-4 team championship with 16.5, ahead of Skinner North's 14.5 and Bateman's 12.0.

Jason Shi defeated William Wang in the lone playoff of the day to decide the K-2 Novice division. Both compiled perfect 5-0 records before the blitz match. Jason, who was visiting from Michigan, would have enjoyed the higher tiebreak anyway. 

The pair finished ahead of a six-way tie for third place with Grant Porman earning the top tiebreak to claim the third place trophy.

Decatur Classical will keep the K-2 team trophy with its 13.5 result, a half-point better than Edgebrook's 13.0. Skinner North was another half-point back at 12.5.

Decatur was lead by 4.0's from John Seward and Josephine Swan with John nabbing the 7th place trophy on higher tiebreaks and Josephine earning a medal.

The next YCFC event is the January 16, 2016 Gwendolyn Brooks tournament. Registration is free with further information posted in the ICA calendar.