Division 1 was an exercise in persistance. Nicolet and Madison West were heading towards a showdown, matching stride for stride. When West knocked off Nicolet in Round 4 they figured to stroll on in for the title.
They figured wrong.
A last round loss to University School left the door open for Milwaukee School of Languages, and they walked on in. By beating Nicolet by a wider margin than West, and by defeating University School (the school that handed West its defeat in the final round) in Round 2, Milwaukee School of Languages tied with West for first place, and their better tiebreaks gave them the title.
A gutsy MSL squad, led by Anthony Parker, who tied for the best score on first board, deserves the recognition for refusing to quit, and taking advantage of the chance they were given.
Other individual efforts of note: Vik Sasi of USM tied with Parker for best first board. Fort Atkinson's Michael Schmid took best score on second board. On third board, Fan Wu (Madison West) and Brian Shawger (Marquette) tied for the best score. Nilay Sheth (Fort Atkinson fourth board) and Eric Wullschleger (Madison West fifth board) round out the best individual performances.
In Division 2, Brookfield Academy rolled on to win with a perfect score, with only their last-round opponent, Nicolet B, able to even make the match close.
In individual performances, Stephen Feak (Hartford Union) was best first board with a perfect score. On second board there was a four-way tie between Lewis Logan (Neenah), Andy Hoang (Fort Atkinson), Jens Jensen (University School), Nathan Spaeth (Milwaukee Tech). Kao Xiong (Riverside) was best third board, while Chris Gehl (Brookfield Academy) and Mike Rasmussen (Waupaca) tied with perfect scores on fourth board. On fifth board we find a three-way tie with perfect scores from Josh Turner (Jefferson), Ben Schwade (Brookfield Academy) and Dan Le (Waupaca).
Nicolet took the team title for JV (K-12) while the individual title went to Stephan Desmoulin (Plymouth Home School) on tiebreak over Paul LaCosse (Manitowoc Roncali). The K-8 team title went to Marion, whose Tom Hintz also won the individual title with a perfect score.