Chess Champions!

Interzonal Chess – Koonung wins silver at Alphington Interzonal!

On 30 July, our largest Koonung Chess squad ventured out to Alphington Grammar to compete in our second Interzonal tournament of 2024, through Northern Star Chess. We had a large range of students with Josiah Moh, Archer McNeil, Ethan Pearce, Kugan Madhavan, Jalen Yong and Tashi Chng from Year 7; Harish Umashankar, Myren Furi, Leo Al-Ali and Darren Tsai in Year 8; Josiah Ng, Ernest Huang, Dio Freiha, Kerry Xu, and Vinh Pham in Year 9; Matt Rogers, Elliott Field, and Ashton Lonnen in Year 10; and VCE students James Panchmatia and Molly Doyle in Year 11, and team leaders, Mikey Yang and Alejandro Rowter-Neira in Year 12.

We also give a very special shout-out and thank you to Joy Kamberidis who volunteered to join our chess trip to ensure the safety of all students.

After the completion of play, Koonung fell incredibly short of winning our second consecutive Interzonal Title by trailing Ivanhoe Grammar by a single point to gain a very honourable second place. With almost all top players matched to Ivanhoe students in the final round, this result could easily have fallen Koonung’s way, but Ivanhoe played some fantastic chess and deserved their top spot.

There were also several fantastic individual results, with a large amount of medal recipients and state final qualifiers.

The medals were as awarded to:

Molly Doyle and Kerry Xu – Bronze Medal in Girls Category
Alejandro Rowter Neira – Bronze (Year 11-12)
Jalen Yong and Kugan Madhavan – Bronze (Year 7-8)
Josiah Ng – Bronze (Year 9-10)
Darren Tsai – Silver (Year 7-8)
Matt Rogers – Silver (Year 9-10)

A special congratulations to the following gold medal winners:

Ashton Lonnen – Gold (Year 9-10)
Mikey Yang – Gold (Year 11-12)

The following students also achieved brilliant results, resulting in a state final qualification:

Alejandro Rowter-Neira
Ashton Lonnen
Josiah Ng
Vinh Pham
Jalen Yong
Dio Freiha
Elliott Field
Mikey Yang
Kugan Madhavan
Darren Tsai
Matt Rogers
Kerry Xu
Molly Doyle

Congratulations to the whole team for a wonderful turn-out and result. It was great to see a number of debutants in chess tournaments, and it looked like everyone had a great time, and conducted themselves fantastically. Many opposition staff commented on the chess ability, good presentation, and good manner of the Koonung contingent which was great to hear.

Students will now compete in the upcoming State Final against many other players and schools in early Term 4.

Koonung Chess is thriving – join in by coming to the next tournament, and coming to Chess Club on Thursday lunchtimes!