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The 2003 Michigan High School Team Championships were held on a bitter cold day in February on the campus of Wayne State University. This tournament has resumed its tour of the Michigan colleges and universities affording HS students an opportunity to see which schools might appeal to them in the near future. We were granted use of a spacious flag room in the student union; even with our outstanding turnout of 39 teams, we had plenty of space.
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Round 1 was shortened to Game 45 as we were told that we might have to leave the building at 6pm. Thanks to Paul Grams, we were permitted to stay until 9 p.m. as originally scheduled. The top 3 teams in the Reserve section got off to easy starts as Flint Kearsley B scored 4-0 against newcomers Battle Creek Area Math and Science Center, Detroit Southeastern B defeated Dearborn Fordson B 3-1, and Detroit Renaissance B defeated Detroit Winterhalter 3-1. Detroit Finney B was held to a draw by Cheboygan on table 4, and Detroit Paul Robeson A defeated Monroe HS B on table 5. In a battle for Ann Arbor, King Elementary defeated Huron HS B on table 6 while the JH state champions from the previous weekend defeated Detroit Murray-Wright HS.
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Competition was also fierce in the Championship section in round 1. Actually, competition was fierce all day in both events. Top seeded Flint Kearsley A defeated Okemos HS 2.5-1.5. Ann Arbor Huron HS A though, had an easy time defeating first-timers Farmington Hills Harrison HS 4-0. Detroit Renaissance A also had a difficult time, scoring a 2.5-1.5 victory over Detroit Henry Ford HS. Detroit Finney A defeated Dearborn High; Dearborn Fordson upset Monroe HS A; Detroit Southeastern defeated Detroit Chadsey; Detroit Cass Tech defeated Detroit Northern and Muskegon Reeths-Puffer was held to a draw by Goodrich HS A.
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Over in the Reserve section, Kearsley B rolled to another 4-0 victory over Paul Robeson A. Cass Tech B and Southeastern B dead-locked in a draw on board 2. Renaissance B defeated PRA 4-0. On table 4, Ann Arbor King shutout Kearsley D. Monroe Middle School executed a similar handling of Kearsley C on table 5. Four of the 6 younger teams in this event were on the top 5 tables in round 2, but the high school students proved most tenacious as none of the younger teams earned trophies.
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Round 2 in the Championship section saw Kearsley, Huron, and Renaissance defeat Finney, Cass Tech, and Southeastern respectively. Fordson faltered on table 4, drawing with Reeths-Puffer while Monroe and Okemos scored their first wins by defeating Goodrich and Dearborn High. Harrison and Northern drew on table 7 while Chadsey posted its first win over Henry Ford on table 8. With only 3 perfect scores at the end of round 2, the Championship section would see a “shown-down” on table 1 in round 3.
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First though, we turn to round 3 in the Reserve section. Kearsley B continued to dominate their opponents, defeating King Elementary 3.5-.5 as Scott Thach couldn't reduce his winning position in time pressure against Atulya Shetty. Renaissance B made short work of Monroe Middle School, 3-1 on table 2. Cheboygan and Southeastern B locked in a draw on table 3. Finney B and Kearsley C defeated Cass Tech B and Huron B respectively while Winterhalter and Fordson B were victorious over Goodrich B and PRA B. Kearsley A, the top seed, with an average team rating of 1418 was well-balanced with a class B player, Kent Hershberger, on board 1, and three class D players on boards 2,3,4 in Travis Sanders, David Whatling, and Erich Wagner. Ann Arbor Huron had a lopsided team with A-players David Kvatadze and Yinghan Yang on boards 1 and 2 and U1000 players Sontosh Konda and Daniel Poon on boards 3 and 4. In their last chance to win first place in this event, these Huron seniors defeated the Kearsley team 3-1 in an intense match. Renaissance A made the competition look easy as they defeated their league rival Fordson 4-0. Cass Tech A and Monroe A both moved to 2-1 as they were victorious over Finney and Reeths-Puffer, respectively. Southeastern defeated Okemos on table 5 and Chadsey defeated Harrison. Goodrich gained their first victory by defeating Northern as did Dearborn High by defeating Henry Ford. With two perfect scores in Huron and Renaissance, the teams were poised for the championship round.
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The final round in the Reserve section paired top-seed Kearsley B with third seed, Renaissance B. Kearsley B won quickly on boards 3 and 4 as Jason Sowa and Chris Smith completed gold medal performances. Diana Maldonado had to settle for bronze medal on board 3. Renaissance B countered with a win on board 2 giving both Johnathan Hartsfeld of Renaissance and Eric Myers of Kearsley bronze medals. The match hinged on the result of board 1. Scott Thach was again in time trouble against Charde Moore. The game was drawn, giving Scott a bronze medal, and Charde a silver one. Kearsley B repeated as Reserve section champions. Renaissance finished ahead of all of the other 3.0 teams to take second place. In order to collect their trophies, Southeastern B and Cheboygan needed to defeat their younger opponents. Southeastern B was successful in their match against Monroe Middle School. Southeastern collected several medals as Jonathan Williams defeated Ashley Carter on board one to secure a gold medal. Travis Wesley earned a bronze medal on board 2, as did Kevin Smith on board 3. Jacob Skarbek was perfect on board 4 for Monroe MS. The Cheboygan-King match was rather intense. Cheboygan eventually won 2.5-1.5, losing on board 1 and drawing on board 3. Ben Brown and Ben Nowicki won bronze and silver medals for Cheboygan on boards 3 and 4. Southeastern finished third and Cheboygan finished 4th. There were no other teams to join the mix at 3.0 points as Kearsley C drew with Finney B. Monroe defeated Winterhalter and Fordson defeated Kearsley D to become the other teams with 2.5 match points. Chris Schmidt and Will Scheller won bronze medals for Kearsley C on boards 3 and 4. Chris Ramsey won a bronze medal for Finney B on board 2. Stephan Soloman of Monroe B scored 3 points to win a bronze medal on board 2 as did the sibling duo, Robert and Nataiya Taliaferro on boards 1 and 2 for Winterhalter. Ali Shukr was perfect on board 4 for Fordson B and Maeen Mawari scored 3 points on board 1 for a bronze medal. Ed Ferguson, bronze on board 3, was the lone medal winner for Kearsley D. Kearsley B repeated as reserve section champions.
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Was a repeat champion in the cards for the championship section? Huron would certainly have something to say about it, but after board 1 finished, Renaissance didn’t let them do very much talking. David Kvatadze defeated Larry Hooker to complete his gold medal performance for Huron on board 1. DaVaughn Dixon collected his first in a string of impressive results (see the Junior and the Nationals for details) as he defeated Yinghan Yang en route to a perfect score on board 2 for Renaissance. Marcus Williams defeated Santosh Konda on board 3 to earn a silver medal and leave Santosh with a bronze one. Stacey Moore drew with Daniel Poon on board 4 to seal the match for Renaissance and secure herself a silver medal. Renaissance had a very skilled and balanced team this year with about 200 points separating the ratings of their top 4 players. This balance would come into play for their team at Nationals as well. In this event, Renaissance completed a nice performance in a tough section to repeat as Michigan High School Team State Champions. Huron scored enough points for finish 1.5 game points ahead of all of the other teams with 3.0 match points. Table 2 was also a close match with Kearsley winning 2.5-1.5 over Southeastern. Medal winners for these teams included Kent Hershberger and Erich Wagner, with bronze medal performances on boards 1 and 4 for Kearsley and Timothy Speight who won a bronze medal for Southeastern on board 4. Kearsley, with many close matches, finished in 5th place. Southeastern earned the 8th place team trophy. On table 3, Monroe beat Cass Tech 2.5-1.5 in another close match. Monroe was led by a bronze medal performance from John Gattinger on board 1 and a gold medal performance by Max Morefield on board 4. Bronze medal winners, Randall Brooks, and Jaison Oliver, played boards 2 and 3 for Cass Tech who finished 6th. Monroe recovered from their first round loss to win their next 3 matches and finish in 3rd place. Chadsey defeated Fordson on table 4 to become the last team with 3 match points. Like Monroe, Chadsey lost in the first round and won the remainder of their matches. Man Le, Jherek Turgeon, and Tien Phan won bronze medals for Chadsey on boards 2, 3, and 4. A perfect score on board 4 by Samson Lai propelled Dearborn High into 7th place.
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