Kalghatgi Twins 1-2 at Chicago Public School Championships, Whitney Young, Skinner North, Lenart, Decatur Win Team Titles

In the flip-flopping power struggle of brothers Nikhil and Akhil Kalghatgi, Nikhil grabbed the upperhand at this year's Chicago Public Schools K-8 Championships completed March 28.

Nikhil defeated Taft's Matthew Wong in the fifth round while Akhil only managed only a fourth-round draw against Matthew. This gave Nikhil top honors at 5.0 with Akhil nabbing clear second with 4.5.

With the twins' performances, Whitney Young Academic Center cruised to the team championship with 17.0 points. Taft, aided by Jonathan Lee's 3.5 and 3.0's from Matthew, Georgia Wolf and Danilo Velazquez, took second place on tiebreaks over Keller.

Keller was paced by Thomas Dart and David Harrison who both posted 4.0/5's.

WYAC's team total was bolstered by Jeremy Margolin's 4.0 and Elias O'Malley's 3.5.

Gallistel's Ian Ornelas also posted a 3.5, tying with Jonathan and Elias for sixth place.

In the K-6 section, Decatur's Joey Buklis was the lone 5-0 score, defeating previously perfect Minh Thomas of Edison Gifted in the fifth round. On tiebreaks, Minh lead a five-way score group which tied for second place at 4.0/5. 

Tiebreaks were also the key to Skinner North's K-6 team championship, edging Decatur. Ryan Wong and Jonah Karafiol's lead Skinner North with 4.0's, Matthew Li posted 3.5 to take 7th place; Nathan Wells and Osita Achufusi contributed 3.0's. with the top four scores counting. On tiebreaks, Ryan took third place and Jonah nabbed sixth.

In addition to Joey's five points, Decatur scored 4.0 from Gabriel Essex (fifth place) and 3.0 from Steven Evangelou.

Bateman took third place paced by Jim Nguyen's 4.0. Jim placed fourth on tiebreaks.

K-4 competition saw Avi Kaplan with the lone perfect 5-0, defeating Lenart's Nathan Liu in the last round. Liu took second on tiebreaks leading a five-pack of 4.0's.

Teammate Ritvik Viniak also posted 4.0 and teammates Philip Kujawa and Henry Guo tallied 3.5's, tying for 7th place as Lenart secured the team championship with Skinner North edging Bateman for second place.

Skinner North was paced by Jaiden Lulla and Jacob Heller, both with 4.0; Bateman was lead by Zubair Ahmed whose 4.0 -- and tiebreak -- were good for third place honors.

Edison Gifted's David Chen was the sole perfect score in the K-2 with Decatur taking top team honors. Decatur's had five players with 4.0's out of 5, all tying for second place. Due to competition rules, only four of the scores counted towards Decatur's amazing 16.0 team tally. On tiebreak order the Decatur quintet included: Jenna Cinco, John Seward, Ethan Ding, Josephine Swan and Journey Jackson.

David defeated John in the fifth round and Jenna in the third round.

Skinner North took second place (12 points) ahead of Bateman (9.5). Skinner North's score was comprised of 3.0's from Paul Stiles, Asha Lulla, Alisha Verma, Meili Fitzgerald and Noah Shankman (four of which counted).

Bateman was paced by Andrey Novikov who had the top tiebreak among 3.0's, finishing in 7th place.