For the second straight year, Neenah captured the Wisconsin high school chess championship as the team posted a 4-1 record at the meet March 22-23 at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
Neenah was tri-champions in 2013, but won the title outright in 2014 with a tiebreaker based on the best combined record of its opponents. The team swept its matches on Saturday with wins over Milwaukee University School B, Madison West and New Berlin West. On Sunday, Neenah opened with a win over previously unbeaten Brookfield Academy before losing to Milwaukee University School A in its final contest.
The Neenah varsity team was comprised of five seniors, who were all members of last year's championship team. Ryan Thomas played board 1, Thomas Hameister played board 2, Ryan Breuer played board 3, William Cunningham played board 4 and Sarah Murphy played board 5. Murphy was the board 5 champion for winning all five of her individual matches.
It marks the first time since 1993 that a school outside of Madison or Milwaukee has won the outright championship.
Neenah also claimed its fourth consecutive junior varsity state championship and the K-8 team placed sixth overall. Neenah's head coach is Mike Breuer.
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