Jets, Patriots battle to end in Queen’s Quest

MADISON – Youth from across Madison County and as far away as Mobile competed in the Queen’s Quest Chess Tournament.

Mill Creek Elementary School hosted the tournament on Nov. 16. Event sponsor Lockheed Martin raised excitement after each round by distributing prizes, including sunglasses, spinners, poppers and color-changing pencils.

“Lockheed Martin even used a 3D printer to create additional prizes (model F-35 jets) for our first-place individual winners and queen chess pieces in gold for the top four scores on each team,” Ranae Bartlett said. Bartlett is Executive Director of Madison City Chess League.

Lockheed Martin also created a 3D printed chess set and board, given away after a silent auction for Madison City Chess League. Amy Fruchtnicht won the set.

Bartlett thanked student volunteers who worked with elementary chess team members throughout the day.

In K-3 Under 300 Section, individual winners were (starting in first place) Kylie Zou, Jacob Kuang, James Tatum, Nathan Dong, Sawyer Wright, Abhinav Parupalli, Grace Lee, Eiliyah Hafiez, Giovanni Gonzalez and Sydney Kelley. Annabelle Hsu was Top Female.

First-place team award in K-3 Under 300 went to Rainbow Elementary School, followed by Mill Creek, Columbia and Horizon elementary schools.

Individual winners in K-3 Championship Section were Jethro Jones (first), Isaac Kreusser, Noah Hsu, Blaise Bruni, Samsara Rajbhandari, Emma Kuang, Xander Yem, Luke Day, Shravan Balaji and Daksh Sunil. Hank Tyrrell and Aidan Chua tied for tenth.

Winning teams in K-3 Championship were Rainbow (first), Horizon, Mill Creek and Heritage elementary schools.

For K-5 Championship Section, elementary individual winners were Landon Drummond (first), Shawn Choi, Tim Lee, Caden Jordan, Kavi Amrhein, Alex Choi, Joseph Park, Jacob New, Asher Kovacs and Joyner Livingston. Tying for 10th-place medal were Samuel Billions, Eashan Padur, Christina Yang, Laya Gowder, Austin Stark and Ellie Chan. Anna Ai was Top Female.

K-5 team award-winners were Rainbow at first, Horizon, Columbia and Heritage.

Junior high individual winners were Nirvana Rajbhandari, Marek Fries, Owen Lang, Andrew Yang, Rachael Ehrman, Swetha Jakka, William Billions, Zachary Calinsky, Artem Starenki and Caroline Wang. Tying for 10th-place medals were Shruti Kadam and Christine Wang. Sahithi Mynampally was Top Female.

“Our K-12 Open section had the tightest competition all day with the lead changing back and forth,” Bartlett said. “At the end of five rounds, the team from James Clemens beat Bob Jones by one-half point to win.”

Receiving individual awards were William Spanier (first), Shreya Sunil, Sherwood Dong, Pranav Somu, Neha Chopade and Hugh Mitchell. Puja Chopade was Top Female.

For information, visit madisonchess.com.