Saturday, March 15, KU hosted a regional chess tournament for K-12 players in our community wanting to qualify for the state tournament on April 26-27. A player can qualify in two ways: as an individual and as a team. To qualify as a team, students would have to have 5 players from their school attend the regional tournament and take 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. To qualify as an individual player, a student would have to take 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in their age division.
22 players from Conger, Ponderosa, Roosevelt, Stearns, and KU attended regionals. For the elementary age group, individual qualifiers were Emery Singer from Roosevelt, and Silas Moon, Olivia McPherson, and Jaxon Ogborn from Conger. Individual qualifiers from the middle school age division were Isaiah Quintana from the Klamath Home Learning Academy, and Aiden McPherson, Wally Stevens, and Braydon Henderson from Ponderosa. High school students who qualify for state are Willard McClintic and Gideon VanderWaal, both from KU.
Teams that qualified for state were Conger, Stearns, and Ponderosa. Each team can send 5 players to compete, with an optional alternate player. Congratulations to these players and all of their hard work!
