Chess at Niles North has been an emblem of extracurricular excellence since its creation. Featuring a tri-weekly club—meeting Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—and a competitive team, North has been winning chess-based awards for several decades. Even now, the team’s ever-present triumphs are clear and immortalized: in the northern half of the 2000 Hallway sits a display of over a dozen plaques and statuettes highlighting many of the team’s victories in the past quarter-century. In terms of bringing home the gold, and more, this season was no exception.
Before Sectionals—the only qualifying tournament before State—Niles North was performing worse overall than they had in previous years. This left the coaches and the team itself worried about future tournament results. Based on nine attended season tournaments and the Conference Tournament, the Vikings were projected to place 35th out of 128 competing teams. However, these expectations were greatly exceeded. As described by Tournament Director and volunteer coach Harry Kyriazes, this year’s chess team performed “exceedingly well.”
Going into State, one of the Chess Team’s highest accomplishments was their JV 1st place victory at the Conference Tournament, the highest award possible for JV teams—there are no JV-specific matches at Sectionals or State. However, much of how the team defines their proficiency is through their results in the State competition, which much of the team was worried about. Despite this, at State, the team won five out of their seven rounds—called a “5 and 2 record” officially—putting the team in 28th place.
“At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, it was asking a lot to [re]grow the team [back] to a 5 and 2 team,” Kyriazes said. “We lost a lot of players [from] last year—there were a lot of seniors that graduated. I was expecting a 4 and 3 team… [But] we had the same record as last year. The [underclassmen] of the team really energized [the team] and we really won some games because all the players got really involved.”
As is the case with many sports, high individual performances are crucial for team victories, and this goes for the Chess Team as well. The most impressive of these efforts from the Vikings was that of senior Sedrik Punzalan, ranked the third best player on the Varsity team (officially known as board 3).
“At State, I went six out of seven when the average is 3.5 out of seven, and I got [a] medal [for that],” Punzalan said. “My only loss was against an undefeated team that won the [State] tournament.”
Punzalan’s final game specifically was what that determined whether the Vikings would win five of their matches, as they had last year, or drop down to four. Punzalan was up against a real challenge: not only had he blundered in his sixth move, but he was up against Lemont High School, which was projected to place 19 places higher than Niles North. Within the last five minutes of the game, the rest of his Varsity team and the coaches were huddled around his table, anxious about the outcome; if he—or any of the remaining two players on his team—did not at least draw, according to Assistant Coach Adil Dzelilovic, “it would have knocked us down from the top 25% to the top 50%.” Within those final, “crucial” minutes, Punzalan was the only one who came through, winning his game and placing the Vikings a whole seven places higher than their calculated, pre-tournament projection.
In addition to great scores, the team has also fostered—or, more accurately, always had—an active and supportive social environment, as is crucial to positive team performance and outlook.
“We’re all friends with each other and have good team chemistry which helps [a lot],” senior and board 1 player Nathan Chung said. “It takes the edge off the tournament because you’re playing alongside your friends. That doesn’t make it less competitive but, I say, it makes people less stressed out.”
Overall, the Chess Team performed even better than they thought they would when the year started. Though not as victorious in all of their competitions as they wanted to—including professional non-IHSA tournaments—the Chess Team still held an impressive, similar record to the one from their 2023-24 season. And what’s more, the future of the Chess Team looks even better for the next season. As Kyriazes said, “Not only do we have a relatively young team but there’s a lot of excitement.” Niles North’s streak of wins on the checkered grid don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.
