SHU had two teams competing in the online Fall 2024 Collegiate Chess League: Team A and Team B. This article was submitted by Chess Team Captain Brent McCreesh.

SHU Team A
    Team A was given a tough task right out of the gate. In past seasons, they've had an average online rating between 1700-1800, giving their top 2 players significant rating advantages over the field. This season with the addition of Joey, a 1900 online blitz player, the competition had average ratings between 2000 and 2150. This made it tough for a team with an online rated 2400, 2100, 1900, and 1600 to compete with teams of 2250, 2100, 2100, and 1900 or similar teams. 
But this team wouldn't give up just because of a tough draw. 24 total divisions and placed in Division 6. They knew it would be a battle to make playoffs but that was the goal. In week 1 the SHU A team faced off against Ohio State Team A and despite good efforts all around fell 10-6. They followed that up with a 9-7 loss to Maryland and another 9-7 loss to BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus. Suddenly after a few close matches and some tough final results, SHU Team A was sitting at 0-3 on the season and thought it might all be over. With 4 games left, the team's spirits were low. But then… they got a thrilling 14-2 win vs Duke team A, and they began to have hope. Only to lose to GLS University the next week because of scheduling conflicts. Now 1-4, needing the final two games to make playoffs, things were looking bleak. And to add to that, due to scheduling conflicts again SHU Team A scheduled to play their 6th match on Saturday, and their 7th on Sunday. Yes, these matches were on back-to-back days, with the Saturday match being at 8 am. SHU won the morning match beating Southampton School 10.5-5.5, and then defeated Binghamton University Team A 10-6 to clinch a playoff spot! A wild finish to the CCL regular season for SHU team A. 
In the playoffs, SHU Team A faced off against University of Pittsburgh Team A. Halfway through the match they were down 5-3, and it was looking grim for the Pioneers. Then suddenly the SHU players took out their brooms with a 4-0 sweep in round 3 to take a 7-5 lead going into the final round. After a quick opening trap win by Board 3 Joey Cyr, all the Pioneers needed to win was a draw from either of their remaining 3 players. Brent went down, Aidan went down, and it was all up to NM Mark DeDona. With the entire team watching his game, the evaluation bar constantly fluctuated, when the dust settled the game ended in a draw, and SHU Team A secured the Playoff Victory!
In the Quarterfinals, the Pioneers ended up getting beat 11.5-4.5 by the eventual D6 runner-ups at Western University. Hard fought season by all the players. Thank you to Mark DeDona, Brent McCreesh, Joey Cyr, Aidan Shamas, and alternate Ryan Richter for their participation.

SHU Team B
    Team B had a very good team, arguably one of the favorites in their division 23 right out of the gate. Unfortunately, in the regular season some of their players lacked availability which caused them to go 4-3 in the regular season despite having the lead in almost every match.
When playoff time came around and this team was made the 8 seed out of 12, they understood what they needed to do. The team locked in. In the first round, they faced Northwest Vista College in San Antonio Texas, and put them down by a score of 14-2. 
The very next day they faced Whitman College, the #1 seed. After splitting the first two rounds 2-2, the match score was all tied up at 4-4, with half the match to go. And then, SHU Team B won the next set of games 3-1, taking a 7-5 lead going into the final round. They ended up winning the match 9-7 and clinching their spot in the semifinals. 
In the semifinals, they faced the University of Washington, another higher seed who got a few upsets. After a close first round, SHU was able to find the second set sweep 4-0 to take a massive lead in the match. Eventually, they won 10.5-5.5, punching their ticket to the finals. 
In the finals, SHU faced off against Purdue Team D, a strong team. Unfortunately, despite it being a very close match, Purdue was able to find a 9-7 victory, knocking out the Pioneers after a valiant run. Shoutout to key contributors Mark Khalil, Declan Coleman, Trey Medonis, Forde Todd, Evan Gioia, Ryan Lopes, and Michael Baker.

To learn more about Chess at SHU, please email chess@sacredheart.edu or visit http://chess.sacredheart.edu