Northside's perennial rival, Whitney Young, fared similarly to Northside last round. Each of our teams, coming in seeded much lower than in the past four years, was facing one of this year's top-seeded teams. Each challenged the higher seed, and did more damage than any other challenger to the high seeds in the fourth round. Each of us lost our match by the skin of our teeth.
Lane is this year's up-and-comer. Seeded higher than Northside or Whitney Young, they now stand 3-0, after facing an opponent not as strong as those we faced (this is the way the seeding is supposed to work--at this stage, they are benefiting from their marginally better starting position). But when you look at the current pairings, we three are spaced just as we were at the start-- Lane Tech is challenging on Table 6, while Whitney defends Table 8, and Northside defends table 10.
A bit of collective pride in Chicago Public School teams seems in order. Funded at a much lower rate than many suburban leagues, three CPS schools are on the top 10 tables. Pretty impressive.
Pretty good company.
I also noticed the way all the Chicago teams outperformed their seedings in Round 3, including Payton on Table 6, who played Evanston close, 44-24, with two wins and two draws. The rest of the top tables were slaughters -- but Chicago fights! Go Chicago, and above all Go Mustangs!!
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