Texas Tech chess team captures two state championships in Houston
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Story last updated at 11/29/2009 - 3:09 am
The Texas Tech Knight Raiders chess team just captured two Texas Collegiate Championships last weekend in Houston.
International Masters Gergely Antal and Davorin Kuljasevic finished first and second place respectively in the state individual competition.
Antal scored 4.5 points in 5 games to win the prestigious 2009 Texas State Collegiate Championship individual title. They key battle was in round three where he defeated the top seed, Grandmaster Mauricio Flores, from UT Brownsville. He drew his teammate and roommate International Master Davorin Kuljasevic in round four, and won his final game against National Master Nelson Lopez of UT Dallas to clinch the title.
Kuljasevic had a chance to tie for first with his teammate and roommate Antal but was unable to score a full point against International Master Max Cornejo of UT Brownsville in the final round. He had to settle with 4 points in five games and a second place finish.
Together with International Master Gabor Papp and Chase Watters, the Knight Raiders "A" team captured the state team title on tie breaks over the powerful UT Brownsville team. UT Dallas finished in a distant third and the Knight Raiders "B" team finished fourth.
National Master Alex Chua of UT (Austin) captured the individual honor and UT Dallas captured the team title last year. This is the first time Texas Tech sent an "A" team to the state championship and this is also the first two state titles for the Knight Raiders.
Here are the members of our A team: Gabor Papp, Davorin Kuljasevic, Gergely Antal and Chase Watters.
And here are the members of our B team: Zach Haskin, Josh Osbourn, Rebecca Lelko, Brett James, and Ananya Roy.
In just two short years and only one full recruiting year under our belt, members of the Knight Raiders chess team have now captured one national title and two state titles. No other school has reached this kind of success in such little time before.
Our original goal was to reach this level in four or five years and we definitely could not do this without the wonderful support from Texas Tech and our generous anonymous donor.
Congratulations to all the team members, Knight Raiders student advisers Dr. Hal Karlsson and Dr. Rich Rice, and all our supporters for this unprecedented success.
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