ICA Spring Camp Smashing Success; Plavniks, Pavlova, & Mccarthy Win Grand Prix Events! Pavlova, Fang Win Dodgeball Comp, Fangs, Wei & Yarsky Bughouse Champions!
The ICA’s first ever Spring Camp, which started and ran from the week of April 11th to the 15th turned out to be a smashing success with twenty kids registered. Everyone seemed to not only have a good time but also enjoyed the week long competitive aspect of duking it out over the chessboard in classic tournament style play, as well as in the classroom to determine the best scholar, as well as outside with regard to the best dodgeball players. On Friday the campers teamed up to compete in our end of week tradition of a bughouse tournament.
In the classic tournament event, Anthony Plavnik won first place in three out of the four daily tournaments (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) to claim the Grand Prix prize. Going into the last day Anthony and Johnathan Zeng had four points in the Grand Prix but Johnathan stumbled on the final day while Anthony went on to defeat Chad Yang, and Isak Dubrow to claim the two points for a daily tourney win and the GP prize. Anthony’s older brother Johnathan Plavnik, who based on playing strength played a match against Malina Pavlova on each of the four days also won honorable mention for his Grand Prix result of five match wins.
In the best student Grand Prix Blake McCarthy scored three best student wins out of four possible days to claim the prize for that competition, while Malina Pavlova who was in a two-person class with Johnathan Plavnik all week scored five in her individual class. To our pleasant surprise all but a handful of students won a best student award on each individual day.
In the dodgeball competition Malina Pavlova, and Yale Fang scored the most overall points to win the outdoor event. Malina, playing injured with a brace on her leg, was able to catch the ball and lead her team to many a victory each day, while Yale scored crucial last outs, and made tremendous catches to garner individual points as well. Of note was Isak Dubrow’s last day three point pick up where he recorded two catches (one of which was a game winner that meant a bonus point) in the last few seconds of the last game of the week. It wasn’t enough to overtake Malina, and Yale, but it was enough to score a prize for the individual dodgeball result that day.
Lastly, the traditional bughouse event came down to a dramatic playoff as four teams were tied after the regulation time of seven round robin rounds. Upon the completion of the last round: Isak Dubrow, and Leon Berenfeld, Alec Wei and Gil Yarsky, Darin and Yale Fang, and Johnathan Zeng and Chad Yang, all had five individual points. The four teams then had a mini four team playoff after which two teams emerged on top. The Fang brothers, and Alec Wei and Gil Yarsky both ended up with two wins each in the playoff and thereby became co-bughouse champions. We felt it much to ask them to play one final game to determine an ultimate winner, and also we had basically run out of time anyway.
We hope everyone enjoyed their Spring Break and signs up for our camp this Summer. We will continue the Grand Prix competition though the results will be tallied for weekly successes as opposed to daily ones.
Please check out the pictures on our website.
Visitors: 174