With a solid 44.0-24.0 defeat of Waubonsie Valley in the final round, Naperville-based Neuqua Valley was declared champions of Upstate Eight conference tournament.  Neuqua Valley finished the January 31 tournament 4-0.

On tiebreaks, Waubonsie Valley took third place with Metea Valley placing second, both with 3.0 scores.

Elgin High School and St. Charles (East) also scored 3.0/4, placing fourth and fifth respectively. 14 teams competed in the tournament.

First Board Minkee Lee of Nequa Valley was perfect in four matches as was teammmate Ricky Rolbiecki on Board 4. Neuqua Valley's Logan Mazurek had the top score among Fifth Boarders with a 3.5/4 score with three wins and a third round draw.

Four players tied for second place honors on Board One, Matthew Moy of Metea Valley, Krishna Appalaneni of Waubonsie Valley, Jakub Jarmula of Elgin and Matthew Cave of Batavia. On tiebreaks, Moy took second on tiebreaks with Appalaneni third.

Waubonsie Valley's Kay Andressen was perfect on Board Two with a 4.0 score with Neuqua Valley's Joseph Wang and Elgin's Josh Hegal posting 3.0's.

Waubonsie Valley's Board Three, James Collins was also four-for-four with St Charles (East)'s Ryan CHimienti taking second place a half-point back with three wins and a second-round draw.

Finishing behind Rolbiecki on Board 4, there was a six-way tie with Matthew Budiman of Metea Valley taking the runner up award on tiebreaks. Tyler Carlson (Waubonsie Valley), Erik Rabin (St. Charles North), Marcus Gonzalez (Elgin), Mitchell Westa (West Chicago) and Andrew Wilson (Streamwood) all posted 3.0 tallies.

On Board 5, Mazurek was a half-point better than a foursome of 3.0 finishers: Josh Fuess (Metea Valley), James Sullivan (St. Charles East), Jon Butler (West Chicago) and Altun Anlar (Waubonsie Valley) all tied for second with the high tiebreak going to Fuess who had two wins and two draws.

Batavia's Kenny Ryan had four wins and zero losses on Board 6. Four players had 3 points including Neuqua Valley's Sridhar Sid who was the runner up on tiebreaks. Also posting 3.0's was Swapnil Shah (St Charles East), Mark Prakash (Metea Valley) and Kevin Prehn (St Charles North).

Metea Valley's Neti Bhatt had the top score at Board 7 with 3.5, ahead of St Charles North's Jonathan Prehn who posted a 3.0 with two wins and a bye.

Abhi Prabhu of Waubonsie Valley was one of three 3.0/4 scorers at Board 8, earning the top tiebreak. David Fletcher of West Chicago and Garrett Mills of St Charles North were the other two 3.0's.

Neuqua Valley is coached by Jim Fox.

Complete results can be found here as of the publication of this article.