Check! Stevenson state chess champs

Nearly 120 high schools competed this weekend at the IHSA state chess championship in Peoria.

But only the top six teams earned the honor to play within a roped area reserved for the elite.

Stevenson High School started as one of the six top seeds and stayed in the area, while keeping other teams on the ropes.

The Lincolnshire school ran the table, going 7-0 and sweeping its way to the state title Saturday at the Peoria Civic Center.

Scott Oliver, the team's head coach, said the past four years the team had finished in fourth, fifth and sixth place.

"I kind of expected them to continue that, to be in the top six. But it was a very pleasant surprise to be No. 1," he said.

One of the teams Stevenson beat on its way to a perfect tourney was New Trier High School, which ended up finishing third.

Its penultimate match was against Cary-Grove High School, which finished with a 10th-place ranking. Both Stevenson and Cary-Grove were 5-0 going into their match.

"In chess, one of the things you always like to see is whoever is doing the best play heads up," Cary-Grove coach Peter Spizzirri said.

Stevenson sealed the deal with a defeat of eighth-place Barrington High School. Oliver said one of the major factors in this year's success was assistant coach Rob Krause, a Stevenson alumnus.

"This summer, he started having summer meetings once a week. I think that helps," Oliver said.

The players' dedication also played a role, Oliver added.

"In the last couple of years, the students have really done a lot of work on their own. They spend a lot of time studying games, playing back some of the games they have played, and I think that has really helped them a lot," he said.

Individually, three Stevenson players finished at the top of their boards: Jordan Cohen, Justin Feng and Kenny Alldredge.

Oliver said that twice last week, Stevenson alumnus Ken Wallach came to two practices and helped prepare the team. Wallach is Cohen's uncle and was a two-time state individual chess champion.

"We just went in to do our best, not really expecting anything but hoping to get first," said Feng, a freshman. "We have never won it before. We just wanted to try our hardest and get in there and fight."

Another area school that finished in the top 10 was Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, which was ranked 5th. Carmel coach Frank Swindell's team barely missed going undefeated.

"We won six, which was good, but the team that we lost to, we only lost to by two points, so it was kind of tough to lose by two points going for first place."

Among the individual players, Carmel's Frank Swindell, the coach's son, took top honors at Board 1, followed by Hinsdale South's Jim Pavese, York's Byron Chen, Fenwick's Ian Clark and Barrington's Zach Kasiurak.

Swindell said he was very happy about his individual results, yet expressed disappointment at narrowly missing going undefeated.

"If we would have won our second round, we were pretty sure we would have won it all," he said.

Aurora's Illinois Math and Science Academy placed 12th. IMSA fell victim to a fluke incident in the sixth round.

"One of my players was low on time and accidentally forgot to hit his clock, so his time ran out in a match that he had won," coach Don Porzio said. "If he had won that match, we would have beaten the team we had played and would have had an opportunity to go 6-1, which could have put us in the top five in state."

Porzio said the tournament itself was amazing. It starts out with all the teens making noise, but once the matches start, "It goes dead quiet, and you hear all these clocks clicking."