Young Master Jake Renteria holds up the trophy he received for winning all five of his matches in the Texas Region VI Scholastic Chess Championship in Austin last month. (Courtesy Photo)

Six students each from Arlon Seay Intermediate School and Spring Branch Middle School came back with trophies from the Texas Region VI Scholastic Chess Championship on Feb. 10 in Austin.

For the ASIS students, Jake Renteria, Wyatt Whitaker, Joey Cevallas, Felix Rendon III, Aaron Jahns and Caleb McCarthy, this was their first time competing at this level in a United States Chess Federation sanctioned tournament. All played in the Elementary Junior Varsity section.

Renteria had an incredible day, winning all five of his games and beating three players who won four out of five along the way. Ordinarily that would be good enough for first place but a young girl from Austin also finished with five wins against strong competition and neither she nor Renteria had the opportunity to face each other head to head. It took four tiebreaker scenarios to decide that Renteria had earned the second-place trophy.

Whitaker and Cevallas also had a strong tournament, each finishing with three wins in five games.

The other ASIS players each finished with a score of 2.0. In the team competition, Laurel Mountain Elementary School from Austin finished in first place with 15.5 points.

The battle for the remaining four trophy places was very close with only two points separating second through fifth place. Caraway Elementary, another Austin school, finished in second place with 14.0 points. The ASIS team finished in third place with 13.0 points, 0.5 points ahead of Canyon Creek Elementary (Austin) and 1.0 point ahead of James Carson Elementary of San Antonio. In two previous local competitions, ASIS and Carson finished in first and second place, each taking first place in one of those competitions. A good local chess rivalry is being built between these two schools.

Taylor Lathrop, Joshua Garrison, Memo Suarez and Ronnie Abolafia-Rosenzweig competed for SBMS in the Middle School Championship section. This section featured a very strong field of experienced chess players, with Lathrop being the second lowest ranking player in the section amongst a field of 35 players.

Lathrop played very well and had an outstanding tournament. He finished with a score of 3.0, enough to earn the ninth place individual trophy (top 10 players in each section earn trophies). Garrison and Suarez also had 3.0 points, earning them 11th and 13th place respectively. Abolafia-Rosenzweig finished with a score of 2.0. The SBMS team earned the third place team trophy with 11.0 points, behind Canyon Vista Middle School (Austin) with 14.5 points and Grisham Middle School (Austin) with 12.0 points.

Charlie Cevallas and Dylan Klaus of SBMS competed in the Middle School JV section. Cevallas earned the nineth place trophy in this section with a score of 3.0 points. Klaus finished with a score of 2.0.