Chess Club: Fall Season Review
2007
Our last update let everyone know that we were not going to be attending nationals in Vancouver but instead heading to a tournament known as Skylander in Edinboro, PA. The team we sent down was small and filled with rookies, but we went into the tournament with some heart and determination and came out with a 6-2 record and a 9th place finish out of 30 teams. We played games against Lehigh, Penn St, SUNY Buffalo and Rochester in the first day with the only blemish being a loss to Lehigh that was well deserved because we weren't playing very chilly O. That led to us earning a spot in the championship bracket on Sunday. Our first game was against the host alumni team. They were pretty good and we weren't able to adjust our man defense to the hucking offense that they ran. The end result was pretty lopsided and left the team with a few scores to settle. Our next game was a matchup from the previous day against Penn St. We followed our typical MO and went down big early. Went went into half down 7-2, but came together as a team to post a huge 11-10 win. We then played another tight game against an old foe from Huck of the Irish, Towson. We came out of that with an 11-9 win. Our last game we won by forfeit and thus ended the day with a 9th place finish and a long drive back to Ottawa.
An exciting piece of news for our team was that one of our captains Andy Corey earned the opportunity to play in the UPA Championships in Sarasota with GOAT his Toronto club team. We were all cheering him and the team on via score reporter and we are happy to report that GOAT finished in 3rd place for the tournament. Andy was able to bring some of that great experience back to Carleton and continues to pass it on to the team.
Another exciting event for Chess Club was the decision to play in a third fall tournament, once again in the US, this time heading for Delaware. This was an important step for the team as our season is generally over after the second weekend in October, but this year we played for an additional month. Although it was cold for our weekly practice, there was good practice attendance and we sent a full squad to compete at Showdown in Delaware. Despite terrible fields and some of the worst organization we have ever seen (who only gives out 4 L of water for an entire weekend?) we manged to post a 6th place finish out of 18 teams. It was a bit disappointing and we are sure we can improve upon this come spring. We had a chance to play a few more high level teams including Delaware and the Delaware alumni team. We learned a lot about our team from this weekend and everyone is looking forward to bringing all of our experience forward and improving upon every aspect of our game.
Thus ended our most successful fall season since the Chess Club began.
This winter we will be upping the ante and practicing twice a week in anticipation of several tournaments this spring.
We will post updates as they happen. We hope everyone had a great holidays and that your 2008 looks as promising as ours.
See the Fire. Keep the Focus.
Our last update let everyone know that we were not going to be attending nationals in Vancouver but instead heading to a tournament known as Skylander in Edinboro, PA. The team we sent down was small and filled with rookies, but we went into the tournament with some heart and determination and came out with a 6-2 record and a 9th place finish out of 30 teams. We played games against Lehigh, Penn St, SUNY Buffalo and Rochester in the first day with the only blemish being a loss to Lehigh that was well deserved because we weren't playing very chilly O. That led to us earning a spot in the championship bracket on Sunday. Our first game was against the host alumni team. They were pretty good and we weren't able to adjust our man defense to the hucking offense that they ran. The end result was pretty lopsided and left the team with a few scores to settle. Our next game was a matchup from the previous day against Penn St. We followed our typical MO and went down big early. Went went into half down 7-2, but came together as a team to post a huge 11-10 win. We then played another tight game against an old foe from Huck of the Irish, Towson. We came out of that with an 11-9 win. Our last game we won by forfeit and thus ended the day with a 9th place finish and a long drive back to Ottawa.
An exciting piece of news for our team was that one of our captains Andy Corey earned the opportunity to play in the UPA Championships in Sarasota with GOAT his Toronto club team. We were all cheering him and the team on via score reporter and we are happy to report that GOAT finished in 3rd place for the tournament. Andy was able to bring some of that great experience back to Carleton and continues to pass it on to the team.
Another exciting event for Chess Club was the decision to play in a third fall tournament, once again in the US, this time heading for Delaware. This was an important step for the team as our season is generally over after the second weekend in October, but this year we played for an additional month. Although it was cold for our weekly practice, there was good practice attendance and we sent a full squad to compete at Showdown in Delaware. Despite terrible fields and some of the worst organization we have ever seen (who only gives out 4 L of water for an entire weekend?) we manged to post a 6th place finish out of 18 teams. It was a bit disappointing and we are sure we can improve upon this come spring. We had a chance to play a few more high level teams including Delaware and the Delaware alumni team. We learned a lot about our team from this weekend and everyone is looking forward to bringing all of our experience forward and improving upon every aspect of our game.
Thus ended our most successful fall season since the Chess Club began.
This winter we will be upping the ante and practicing twice a week in anticipation of several tournaments this spring.
We will post updates as they happen. We hope everyone had a great holidays and that your 2008 looks as promising as ours.
See the Fire. Keep the Focus.
posted by Greg King at 10:18:00 AM
