Avery Coonley and Whitney Young Dominate 2017 GCC
- Details
- Written by Bill Feldman Bill Feldman
- Published: 07 February 2017 07 February 2017
Almost 500 players participated in the 2017 Greater Chicago Championships February 4 at McCormick Place. The event was organized by the Renaissance Knights Foundation in conjunction with the City of Chicago.
Entrants participated in four varsity and junior varsity sections with separate prize categories for city residents.
In the K-3 Varsity competition Ria Raj of Naperville was the lone 5.0/5 finisher to claim the championship with Kaarthik Nagarathinam of Carmel and Yuvraj Chennareddy of Chicago finishing a point back, tying for second place. Yuvraj was named "City Champion".
Downers Grove's Avery Coonley School won the K-3 Varsity top team trophy with 3.0's from Kavin Bendre and Austin Lok and 2.5's from Jacob Izhaky and Declan Reenan.
In the K-6 Varsity, Deerfield's Zalan Gyorgy was the sole 5.0 finisher, ahead of four players with 4.0's: home-schooled Leon Rapoport, Vikram Oberai who is schooled in Lemont and two Chicago players, Alice Fan and Jack Heller. Alice earned the City if Chicago title.
Coonley won the section's top team trophy thanks to Sohan Bendre (3.5) and 3.0's from Ryan Kong, Abhiram Batchu and Annika Geiersbach.
Whitney Young High School -- and its Academic Center -- dominated the K-9 Varsity section with Neel Jay going 5.0/5 and Aria Hoesley and Daniel Zhang posting 4.0/5.
WY was the runaway team winner for the section with Gabriel Essex also contributing 2.5.
Young's Deniz Gulecyuz was the lone perfect score in the K-12 Varsity section, going five-for-five. Walter Payton's Amar Jerath was clear second place with 4.0/5.
Nonetheless Walter Payton prevailed with the top team score in the K-12 Varsity, lead by Amar's score and 3.0's from Alex Ding and Andrew Li.
Junior Varsity results -- and the complete standings -- are available here.