From left to right,  Ryan Houston, Thinh Nguyen, Parth Patel, Mitch Westlund, Iver Westlund, Coach Mike Maguire. 

Great picture and congratulations to the chess team from North High School that just finished in 6th place in the 12th and Under Division of the Scholastic Chess of Indiana championships, where many/most of the best scholastic chess players in the state of Indiana were battling each other to try to finish in the top 10.  

It was an incredible comeback in the final 2 rounds!

After 2 rounds, they were in 17th place.

In round 3, they won 3 of 4 games and jumped all the way up to 10th place.

In the final round 4, they needed 3 wins to clinch the sought after top 10 finish and actually swept the round with wins on every  board, going 4-0 and popping  up to 6th place. For the afternoon they had 10 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw/tie.

Recently, these players have made tremendous improvements in their chess game with a  great deal of independent studying and self teaching. It showed on Saturday. They played as much chess in between rounds as they did in the competition.

Amazing stamina!

As somebody that's taken dozens of teams to this event in the past, I can tell you that it can mentally wear out some students by the end of the day just from the tournament games in the playing hall. In between rounds, these guys were playing numerous additional games, including very fast paced bullet chess.

Best finish in history for NHS  in a SCI team tournament!

Again, most of their progress this year has been a self imposed, labor of love by them. It's great fun to observe students like this exceed the coaches chess playing skills.

Meteorologist Mike