IHSA Sectionals, Misc Updates

[Erik Czerwin]

Coaches,

WHAT AN AMAZING DAY OF CHESS!  I was glued to the Big Board (Thanks, Scott Johnson!) all day long watching results roll in.  I was in Brimfield, and those teams were duking it out viciously all day.  GREAT matches, great chess, great drama, great stories all around.

Congratulations to the teams that will advance to the State Final tournament.  The results have been added to the ICCA Team Data Sheet (Found here: bit.ly/ICCAteams).  The full list of invited teams will be updated after IHSA publishes the final list.  They still need to go through the results, adjust anything that needs adjusting, send invites, etc. etc., so when that's done, we'll know for sure who advanced.

To those that did not advance, it has been one heck of a season, and it doesn't have to end!  There are still several great chances to play chess this school year.  I would HIGHLY recommend you check out the USAT-North tournament.  It's a USCF rated event, a 4-board team tournament.  Your players can enter a team with friends, family, even coaches!  It's a great fun event.  Check out the details on the ICCA Tournament Schedule, found here: ILChessCoach.org/Schedule

Next steps...  Be sure to keep up with any IHSA deadlines for lineup/roster adjustments.  And please do me a favor...  Please forward this to all the coaches in your conferences.  It's come to my attention that lots of new coaches haven't been added to the e-mail list, and we'd like to keep everyone in the loop!

Finally, assuming the numbers and teams don't change much, preliminary data is in...  We've got record of 180 teams playing throughout the season either in conference matches or at tournaments.  Only 155 teams played at Sectionals this year, down from 160 last year.  However, it looks like 19 teams will advance to State that did not last year.  A few are new programs that haven't advanced until now, some are returning programs that came back strong, and some are good teams that just haven't qualified in a few years.  We've got about two dozen new coaches, several new programs.  For some conferences and some areas, this has been a challenging year with several retirements, struggles with players showing up consistently, administrative challenges, and more.  The ICCA is working hard to address both the successes and the challenges we're experiencing across the state.

What holds true today, and every season, is that we're doing really good work.  Coaches all over the state are devoting themselves to students, challenging them to improve themselves through the study and competition of chess.  And I'm proud to be a part of that work.  Thank you coaches for all that you do as educators and mentors to the players of Illinois.

As we enter Championship season, please keep your e-mail inboxes open as we'll send updates and news.  IHSA, IESA, City and Nationals championships are all coming up in the next several weeks.  Good luck to everyone, and as always, if you need ANY support for your program, please don't hesitate to ask!

-- Erik Czerwin

Owner/Operator - Prairie View Hobbies

Fiberglass Manufacturer - Wildman Rocketry

ICCA Secretary - ILChessCoach.org