American Go E-Journal

On Sunday, Feb. 19th, two eight player teams, from Irvington Elementary School and Sun Montesorri School, in Portland OR, played a two round match.  The score was 8-8.  Irvington was a player short and added a ‘ringer’ in Theo Balwit (organizer Fritz Balwit’s son) to even the playing field.  The players are in the 2nd through 5 grades and this is their first year in team play. Sunstone won 6 games in the opening round, Irvington 6 in the second. In a battle with big swings, Holden Anderson was able to hold out over Ellis Zehnder for a 2 1/2 point win.  It’s not clear which team won the game of tag after the go match. Both teams would like to play again.  Results: Irvington Team: Theo Balwit, 2-0; McCaleb Nesseler-Cass, 1-1; Jordan Reed, 1-1; Ellis Zehnder, 0-2; Aden Corkum, 2-0; Ben Snead, 1-1; Tyler Reed, 1-1; Alton Lechner, 0-2. Sunstone Montesorri Team: Amos Brown, 1-1, Holden Anderson, 2-0; Hanson Lian, 0-2; Ishan Varma, 1-1; Nico Karassik, 0-2; Soren Lindseth, 1-1; Shalem Len, 1-1, Dylan Lian, 2-0.   – Story and photo by Peter Freedman