Caritas rules First Area Meet in Laguna

BY: ANTHONY NAVARRO (Chesswindows Laguna Correspondent)

The Caritas Don Bosco School (Biñan) teams (Elementary and High School) dominated the First Area Chess Meet in Laguna, erecting a puntuative 1-2 finish with 5 points each.

The Elem Team got first place due to superior Board 1 result (2 of 2) courtesy of Christian Navarro. Tetsuo Otsuka of Elem team also had a good outing in Board 3 with 2/2 performance. In their 2nd match, Christian edged LSMS Board 1 medallist Camille Gutierrez to anchor a 2-1 win over St. Scholastica's Team B, who earlier got a 1-2 result vs Caritas' HS team in their 1st match.

Earlier, Caritas' Elem team scored a surprising 3-0 shutout of St Scho's HS Team A. Monica Revadulla of Caritas HS regaled the spectators with a Board 3 triumph punctuated by a fast 3-move mate in their first match vs St Scho's HS Team B.

It was an event among schools in the South in the Sta Rosa/Biñan,Laguna and Silang/Cavite 'growth and educational corridor'. Participants were Caritas Don Bosco School (Binan), De La Salle Canlubang (DLSC) and St Scholastica Westgrove (Silang), with Caritas as host. This will now be an annual event, host next year will be St Scho.

St. Scholastica was magnanimous in granting Caritas' request for the Elem team to play in the HS Division as DLSC withdrew their lone player entry in the Elem Division.

Caritas players Tetsuo Otsuka, Emman Espiritu, Jonas Espiritu, Paolo
Espiritu,Christian Michael Navarro, and chess coordinator Tony Navarro

Jonas Espiritu (HS Board 2 with 2/2 performance) receiving

Chess MVP Certificate. Arbiter Tony Yu made the assessment
based on overall performance and attitude.