The Hemet High School gold team (players ranked one through four) won every game they played for a four round total of 16-0. The gold team has two members who are seniors and have been part of each of the three consecutive championships. The three-year members are Valedictorian Sean Rafferty and senior Eden Chen.
"Next year the red team members will compete to take over their spots on the gold team and hopefully the winning tradition will continue," said chess coach John McKelvey.
This year's red team featured academic decathlon member and senior Dallan Gardner and two students from next year's decathlon team, James Estrada and Kenny Perry.
"The tournament director came over to me and congratulated us not just on the win, but also on completely sweeping the competition," McKelvey said. "I am one proud chess coach!"
The team beat out competition from larger schools such as Riverside King, Riverside Poly, and La Sierra.
The gold team rankings were as follows:
1st place: Dake Huang
2nd place: Sean Rafferty
3rd place: Eden Chen
4th place: Nilesh Gupta
The red team rankings were as follows:
1st place: James Estrada
2nd place: Dallan Gardner
3rd place: Kenny Perry
4th place: Amit Aggarwal