Not all chess needs to be rated by the US Chess Federation to have dramatic significance.

The Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) hosted its fourth championships February 28 and March 1, crowning individual and team champions in two sections. 

Vincent Do of Rockford's Thurgood Marshall Academy and Bloomington Evans Junior High's Rithvik Musuku split the championship of the 7th Grade section, while Nathan Sobery of Normal's Kingsley Junior High won the 8th Grade section.  All three players finished with perfect 7.0/7 scores. Impressively, all three are only in the 6th Grade.

Entries came from 40 IESA-member schools, largely middle schools and junior high schools.

The event was hosted at the Bone Student Center on the campus of ISU. Results and more information about the IESA can be found at http://www.iesa.org/activities/chs

Musuku lead Bloomington Evans to the team 7th Grade title, narrowly out-pointing Marshall, 28.0 to 27.5. Evans' Ishaar Ganesan and Nikhil Pallem contributed to the victory with 6.0/7.0 and were deemed among the "Runners Up" in the individual competition, as was Marshall's Sengdao Inthavong.  

Perry Hoag (Flossmoor Parker), Michael Maxfield (Normal Parkside), Derek Dumas (Grant Park), and Abhiru Raut (Normal Chiddix) rounded out the Runners Up.

Peoria-area's Dunlap Middle School claimed the 8th Grade Section, besting Normal Kingsley, 29.5-25.5. Dunlap was lead by Max Jong with an undefeated 6.5/7, and a trio of 6.0/7 scorers: Albert Li, Patrick Li and Timothy Mou. Dunlap's Noah Curry posted a 5.0 score and was considered a Second Runner Up.

JC Micklich (Normal Epiphany) and Ivan Poon (Colona) rounded out the list of 8th Grade Runner's Up with 6.0/7 scores.

30 schools entered both sections, with six additional teams competing in the 7th Grade and four more entering the 8th Grade competition.  Of the 40 schools participating, 12 came from the Peoria area, 6 from the Bloomington-Normal region, and 5 from the Greater Springfield area. 8 schools came from what might be considered the Chicago south suburban region, 4 came from other areas of northern Illinois and 4 came from other downstate cities. 

Chicago Faraday was the lone participant from the city of Chicago, entering only the 8th Grade competition and finishing in a three-way tie for 7th place.

Defending Champion Lincolnshire's Daniel Wright Junior High did not participate. Wright JHS had swept all three previous 8th Grade Championships and two of the three previous 7th Grade events. In fact, no teams from the northern suburbs of Chicago entered this year's IESA competition.