(L to R: Jake Schoenbauer, David Santos, Kerry Crawford, Kenny Moe, Connor Moe, John Blomer, Thomas Pritchard, Owen Krick, Rynaldo Mejia, Aiden Callenius, Mason Pederson, Coach Ribnick; not pictured: Harrison Stage and Jeenal Sharma)
Congratulations to the Nicollet Middle School Chess team, which placed sixth in America at the National Junior High Chess Championships the last weekend of April!
Leading the way was team captain and first board Jacob Schoenbauer, who placed 60th. Other scorers were Harrison Stage, John Blomer and Jeenal Sharma.
Other Nicollet contributors were David Santos, Kerry Crawford, Kenny Moe, Connor Joseph, Thomas Pritchard, Owen Krick, Rynaldo Mejia, Aiden Callenius, and Mason Pederson. The team is coached by Brian Ribnick.
There were 56 teams that entered and about 570 players. Congratulations to the Nicollet Knights on an incredible effort!
The directors are now going through the 2,500 games that were played to carefully check for fair play. This will take some time, so the final official results will be posted by May 16th at the latest. It is possible for our team placement to change slightly based on this.
The team’s sixth graders will participate in the Minnesota Elementary chess championship this weekend.