April 8, 2010
The Texas Tech Knight Raiders are in the Final Four in Brownsville this weekend at the Collegiate Team Chess Championship
Written by Cory Chandler
Texas Tech is in the Final Four!
No, the Red Raiders did not take the place of the Michigan State Spartans, West Virginia Mountaineers, Butler Bulldogs or Duke Blue Devils in Indianapolis. There are no layups, heart-stopping free throws or desperation three-pointers from mid court for the national title.
The Texas Tech Knight Raiders are in the Final Four in Brownsville this weekend at the Collegiate Team Chess Championship, fighting for the coveted national title.
This is the first year Texas Tech sent an A team to compete in the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the chess version of March Madness, to battle 28 top chess teams including Yale, Princeton, Stanford and UT Austin to earn a spot in the World Series of College Chess.
The Road to the Final Four
To get to the Final Four, the Texas Tech Knight Raiders trounced Princeton 4-0, UT Austin 4-0, Florida Atlantic University 4-0, and Stanford 3 ½- ½.
In its first recruiting year, the Knight Raiders A team earned a berth in the Final Four by finishing in a tie for second place in National Division I, snagging two firsts in chess history – no team has never made the Final Four in its first try, not to mention Susan Polgar is the only woman to lead a Division I men’s team to the Final Four.
Underdogs
Of the four teams competing at the tournament, the Knight Raiders are the lowest-ranked and least-experienced team. The team will face the University of Maryland Baltimore County, UT Dallas and UT Brownsville at the UTB campus Saturday, April 10, and Sunday, April 11.
Wreck ‘em, Knight Raiders!
The A Team
- Davorin Kuljasevic, Croatia, graduate student in finance
- Gergely Antal, Hungary, senior economics major
- Gabor Papp, Hungary, senior finance major
- Chase Watters, Texas, graduate Ph.D. student in microbiology
- Susan Polgar, head coach
- Paul Truong, assistant head coach
1 comment:
Its a very nice event and good improvisation to the youngsters.
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