Ever since Tera started playing chess, she has wanted to play in an all girls tournament. While she was actively playing a couple of years ago, there were no tournaments close enough for us to attend. Until yesterday!!!
A official from our local region contacted us to alert Tera about the upcoming Tennessee GIRLS tournament that would be LOCAL!!! I told her she really had to do it! She has so much on her plate, but she prepared in her spare time online and with Daniel.
What an awesome experience for her senior year!
Sitting, waiting and walking was how the rest of us spent the day. Almost 16000 steps total!
Going into the day, Tera's pretty lofty goal was to finish in the top three. It was a nerve-wracking day to say the least. You never know how a chess day is going to go--ups and downs. Two hour-long games that wear you out times FOUR!
But she did it! Third place overall!!!!!
There was a three-way tie that would have required a playoff for a scholarship to the engineering program at UTK, but Tera is NOT even remotely interested in that field of study. So, she retained her third place ranking and let the other two players play the tie-breaking game. I'm proud of her for knowing what she wants and letting others that would actually benefit from that scholarship compete for it. Most of the people there did not understand her decision, but we did! That's one of the things we love about that girl!
She got a nice chess swag bag and is waiting on her third place trophy to arrive. Definitely one of the best highlights of her senior year!
Daniel also had a pretty big event on the same campus that day, as well. I'll post about the mad dash at the end of the day and Daniel's event in another post.