Woodside Elementary chess team wins first-place at All Girls state championship

Today five young competitors from Woodside Elementary headed to Fox Point to participate in the All Girls Chess Championships held at Cardinal Stritch University.

Organized by the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation, the championship is currently in its eighth season and strives to promote and celebrate girls playing chess. This is a lofty goal since worldwide statistics show that for every nine boys playing chess, only one girls participates.

Ahead of the curve

But the chess team at Woodside Elementary is well ahead of the curve with girls representing fully one-third of the team.

And at the All Girls championship today, Woodside stood out again with 5 talented players from first through fifth grades competing.

The Woodside team built an early lead in the first round of the K3 division — capturing 3.5 of a possible 4 points — and never looked back. They finished the day with a combined 9-4-7 record and a first-place trophy.

Winning records

The team was lead by strong performances by first-graders Beth Ostdick and Sage Osesek who each finished with 3-1-1 records and 3.5 points.

Beth and Sage both started playing chess in Kindergarten.

The team at Woodside is the only elementary school-aged program in Sussex and even attracts players from Templeton Middle School. It was started in 2007 and is currently coordinated Dena Osesek and Tracy Dow.

The 2012-2013 chess season has been a breakout year for the Sussex-based team. Today’s K3 win at the All Girls Championship marks three, first-place trophies in 4 months.

The Woodside girls have also trophied at the Wisconsin Gradelevel Championships (1st-grade) and the Goodrich Elementary tournament (K5 division).

Practice makes perfect

The team practices on Thursdays throughout the school year and their final session of the 2012-2013 season was held on April 11th.

Woodside coach Bob Patterson-Sumwalt — who also serves as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation — organized the All Girl Championship and was pleased with Woodside’s performance.

"I’m really impressed with the turnout each week at Woodside. There is a lot of passion from the players and the pace of learning has really jumped this year."

Patterson-Sumwalt explained that one of the challenges in teaching chess in elementary schools is getting an adequate number of players at a high enough skill level and experience to be coached effectively.

"Given their success at tournaments this year and all the progress we’ve made in practice, I’m really excited about the Woodside's potential when we start up again in the Fall."

Summer Chess Camp

Although chess season is over at Woodside Elementary for the current school year, the Woodside Chess Team is organizing a 3-day chess camp over the summer.

Anyone interested in Chess Camp can contact Dena Osesek at denaman@hotmail.com.

Results, Woodside Team (All Girls Championship): Soumaya Drover (3rd grade, 1-1-3 record, 15th overall), Sujaya Drover (1st grade, 2-1-2 record, 9th overall), Sage Osesek (1st grade, 3-1-1 record, 8th overall), Cassidy Osesek (5th grade, 2-1-1 record, 14th place overall), Dena Osesek (coordinator), Beth Ostdick (1st grade, 3-1-1 record, 4th overall).