The HTHS Chess Team sent 13 participants to the NJ State High School Championship Tournament on Saturday (4/27). The tournament included 4 rounds and each round lasted close to 2 hours.

The Varsity team consisted of Jason Yan, Andrew Mascillaro, Aditya Baireddy, Abhinav Ramidi and Eric Chai. The team defeated Union County Votech in round 1 and St Joseph HS in round 2. In round 3, they had to face perennial chess powerhouse - Bergan County Academy. BCA was the heavily favored #1 seed in the tournament – their team rating was over 300 points higher than the number 2 seed. The match went down to the wire but #3 seeded High Tech managed to pull off the epic upset and win the match by a score of 3-2. In round 4, the team was pitted against #2 seed Gill St Bernard HS. If High Tech could pull out a win, then they would be state champions. With the teams tied 2-2, it was up to Jason Yan – who was pitted against the highest rated player in the tournament. If he could win his match then High Tech would be state champs. The battle raged for over 2 hours and it ended in a Yantastic win for Jason!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NJ STATE CHAMPION CHESS TEAM!!!

The following varsity players also earned individual awards:

Jason Yan – Board 1 State Champion!

Aditya Baireddy – 3rd Place at Board 3.

Abhinav Ramidi – 2nd Place at Board 4.

The #4 seeded HTHS JV Team consisting of Andy Zhang, Justin Guo, Alexander Postovskiy, and Kyle Dimaggio performed very well enroute to a 2nd place team finish in the JV Bracket.

In addition, Justin Guo earned 2nd Place at Board 2 and Alexander Postovskiy is the JV Board 3 State Champion!

In the Booster Division, High Tech was the 2nd place team and all 4 players from High Tech finished in the top 10 as individuals: 4th place for Hazem Zaky; 5th place for Shashwat Tewari; 6th place for Mayank Barad and 7th place for Ben Shain.

Congratulations to all for an outstanding performance!!

The picture on the left is the Varsity team (left to right): Abhinav Ramidi, Eric Chai, Jason Yan, Andrew Mascillaro, Adithya Baireddy

The middle picture is the JV team (left to right): Alexander Postovskiy, Justin Guo, Andy Zhang, Kyle Dimaggio

The picture on the right is the Booster team (left to right): Hazem Zaky, Mayank Barad (missing - Shashwat Tewari, Ben Shain