Community & Business
25 October, 2021
St Thomas’ checkmates in Chess State Finals
ST THOMAS of Villanova Primary School’s chess team has said “checkmate” to their competition recently in Brisbane for the Chess State Titles, taking out second place for the regional division.
The group of four boys travelled to Gregory Terrace School in Brisbane with their coach and mentor, Michael Harnischfegar after winning the local qualifier competition.
With the competition being so close against the state’s best school chest teams, Mr Harnischfegar said that second place was hard earnt and deserved.
“Overall they came second in the regional division, which is pretty cool. They’ve worked really hard to get where they are, they are quite a talented group and they performed at the highest level,” he said.
“These boys have been in the chest program at St Thomas’ for two or three years now plus most of them play every lunch hour as well and outside of school against computers.
“Coming second in the rural division was quite prestigious and two of the boys won their boards which was an incredible achievement.”
The four boys who went down said that the experience was incredible and they hope they can make to more state titles in the future.
“We didn’t do too bad, second place is quite good against every best school in the state and I am hoping to go to a few more state finals and play a few more tournaments,” said Team Captain and Board One Sami Abdalla.
“It’s pretty exciting, I found it pretty upsetting that we couldn’t go last year due so this year was nice to go and I hope that in our high school life that we qualify to state finals again but we will see how it goes,” said Board Two Gold Medalist Rodney Perkowicz.
“Coming our second place for rural was pretty good but it was kind of annoying because our opposing team in the final round was only half a point ahead of us and in the future I hope in Year 12 to be the absolute top in Nationals,” said Board Three Gold Medalist Ashley King.
Board Four, Christian Salvetti is two years younger then the other players and hopes that he can take up Sami’s role once the other three boys go to high school.
“It was exciting and a highlight was playing with my friends in the tournament and having a great time and I hope that I can get back with the boys in high school and win some more tournaments,” he said.
