The Illinois High School state finals were played at the Peoria Civic Center February 11th & 12th. Four Peoria Area schools finished with plus scores (in order of tie-break finish): Dunlap, Washington, Metamora, and East Peoria. They were followed by Brimfield, Richwoods, Limestone and Morton. All schools had to survive the sectionals to qualify for state. Local HS chess should be heating up next year as only Metamora had a preponderance of seniors on their squad.
The state title went to Lincolnshire (Stevenson), who was lead on top board by former Peorian, junior Rohit Guha. A special hat tip to sophomore Noah Li, playing board 8 for Dunlap, who scored a perfect 7 wins in 7 games. Scoring 6 points were Washington's William Forbes (3rd board) and Metamora's Lucas Miller (4th board).
.Most schools choose to organize into conferences to arrange for a competitive season. The CICL chess conference is composed of high schools in Central Illinois.
The Peoria area high school chess teams came together to form the West division of the Central Illinois Chess League 8 years ago in 2014. Each school is required to play the others in weeknight matches. Division awards for teams and individuals are presented based on these matches. Two local schools hold tournaments, Morton in November and Brimfield in December or January. Our schools join the East and Central divisions at two Central Illinois Chess League sponsored tournaments, Trahan in October and the Illini Classic in January. IHSA Sectionals are held at the end of January with State following in February.
A full report of the results can be found here
Hats Off! to our coaches who spend a lot of time bringing chess to their teams.
School | Coach | ||
---|---|---|---|
Brimfield | Bernales, Robert | robert.bernales@brimfield309.com | |
Dunlap | Shea, Jason | jshea@dunlapcusd.net | |
East Peoria | Laughlin-Dimitroff, Tamme | tdimitroff@ep309.org | |
Limestone | Stromberger, Connie | cstromberger@limestone310.org | |
Manual | Stevens, Adam | adam.stevens@psd150.org | |
Metamora | Karch, Jessica | jkarch@mths.us | |
Morton | Serrurier, Kim | kimberly.serrurier@mcusd709.org | |
Peoria High | |||
Princeville | Johnson, Tony | tjohnson@princeville326.org | |
Richwoods | Smith, Michael | michael.smith@psd150.org | |
Washington | Madsen, Dave | jdmadsen@wacohi.net |