Prairie Chess Club had 14 students participate in the Iowa Scholastic Chess Championships on Saturday, February 20 and had some historic results. For the first time in our school history, Prairie won the Grade K-6 State Chess Championship!
The team was led by Kelton Holm (1st Grade, Crest) who was the only player to go undefeated with a perfect score of 5 wins and 0 losses or draws. Kelton had great support from his teammates. Vincent Wong (5th Grade, Creek) went 4-1 and Logan Puetz (6th Grade, Creek) went 3-2. We still needed one more point from another Prairie player to edge out the defending champions, Coralville Central, and we could have gotten that from any one of the rest of the players including Sophia Netolicky (6), Henry Criswell (6), and Dalton LeRoy who each had two victories. After all of that, we still had enough players and victories to pick up the K-3 Second Place Team Trophy. (Players can only count toward one team trophy).
There were many individual honors, too. Kelton won the K-3 Elementary State Championship. Prairie picked up three class prizes with Jack Bear capturing the medal for top score 1st grade, Vincent Wong, top score 5th grade, and Aidan Hoovik, top score 7th grade. Sophia Netolicky won the top new player medal for 5th grade.
All Prairie participants will receive an individual medal recognizing their contribution to the K-6 Team Championship. Click here to learn more about Prairie Chess Club.
- Wong, Vincent (5)
- Criswell, Henry (6)
- Puetz, Logan (6)
- Criswell, Munro (1)
- Adams, Noah (4)
- Bear, Jack (1)
- Holm, Kelton (1)
- Holst, Tyler L (5)
- Leroy, Dalton (5)
- Netolicky, Sophia (5)
- Olson, Canan (6)
- Robertson, Quinn (5)
- Ton, Chan (4)
- Hoovik, Aidan (7)