With a seventh-round draw, 7th-Grader David Peng clinched top honors at the 2015 USCF National Junior High Championships, winning the K-9 section outright with a 6.5 tally.

David's final opponent, Sam Capocyan of Texas, tied for second with two others at 6.0.

Eighth-grader Matthew Stevens posted 5.0/7, tying for 10th place, 13th on tiebreaks. Hanson Hao tied for 25th with 4.5.

In the K-8 section of the same event, Rockford's Vincent Do, a seventh grader, tied for seventh place with a 5.5/7 result, drawing Ohio's Maggie Feng in the final round. Maggie had the top tiebreak among 5.5 scorers, having drawn the section champion in the sixth round. Marcus Miyasasaka of New York had the highest tiebreak among six 6.0 scorers to win the section.

Ricky Wang, a sixth grader, lost his last game to another 6.0 scorer, Joey Kelly of Kansas. Joey placed second on tiebreaks. Ricky tied for 20th with a 5.0 result.

Bloomington-Normal area mates Advaith Prabu (5th grade) and Jason Daniels (6th grade) both finished with 4.5 scores, tying for 36th place out of 216 entrants.

Lead by Jason's 4.5 and Cassie Parent's 4.0, Chiddix Junior High of Normal finished in eighth place in the section's team standings. Chiddix finished only a point back from legendary IS 318 of Brooklyn Castle fame.

In K-9 Under 1250 competition, Rockford's Jeremiah Davis, a sixth-grader, posted a 5.5, tying for fifth place out of 159. On tiebreaks, Jeremiah earned seventh place hardware.

Rhodes Magnet School of Evanston took 25th place in the team tally with Salan Wang and Alexander Fogel contributing 3.0's for a 6.0 total.

In the K-8 Under 1000 section, 7th-grader Ben Garza tallied 4.5, tying for 33rd place out of 160 entries. Illinois sixth graders Amanda Carlson and Rahul Darbhakul also posted 4.5's with Ben earning the top tiebreak.

The scores from Amanda and Rahul, along with Andrew Carlson's 3.0, lead Chiddix to a 15th-place tie in the team rankings with 12.0 points, taking 17th on tiebreaks. Chiddix had the top score of schools with only three entrants.

In K-8 Under 750 competition, Thomas Dart earned a share of a nine-way tie for second place with a 6.0/7 score. The Keller eighth-grader earned 9th place hardware on tiebreaks. 

With 5.0, fourth-grader Jonah Fogel finished a point back in the K-8 Under 750 to tie for 17th place out of 183 entrants. A trio of Illinois players posted 4.5's including third-grader Matei Cotofrea, fifth-grader Layla Rodriguez and sixth-grader Colin Huh.

Matei and Layla helped Bateman school to a 21st-place finish in the team standings, one point ahead of Thomas' Keller team score. A point back at 9.0 was Gallistel, lead by 4.0's from Joseph Garza and Ian Ornelas.

The three teams were hampered by having fewer than the allowed four players contributing to the team score. Some schools in the section had as many as 13 entries.

Thomas also won the "Coach/Player" side event with Coach Mikhail Korenman. In that same side event, Eva Harrison and son Christopher took third place in the "Mother/Player" competition.

Full charts are available here. The competition concluded April 26th in Louisville, KY.

Nikhil Palem of Evans Junior High took third place honors in the K-9 Championship Section for players with ratings 1200-1399.

Kevin Ho of Kennedy Junior High in Lisle took second place honors in the K-8 section for players with ratings 1500-1599. In that same Championship section, Vishnu Anangani of Chiddix took second place for those with pre-event ratings of 1200-1299.