Brother Rice’s Crusader Chess Team dominated Hope Academy for their final home game of the season last week. Not only did all six of Rice’s players win on January 22, but the match was broadcast for the first time in school history by the student-run Brother Rice TV.
Broadcasting and commentating on chess matches is routinely done at the highest professional level both at in-person rated competitions sanctioned by the international chess federation and for online competitions such as those played on chess.com, but local high school chess competitions are rarely if ever broadcast.
“Brother Rice TV wants to promote all aspects of our school,” said Patrick Creed, Brother Rice’s director of counseling and BR TV moderator, and a 2006 graduate. “We want to broadcast every activity and event that showcases what our incredible students do.
“Broadcasting a chess match was brought to us by one of our members who spoke with Coach Sean Kirchman, and it’s something that we decided to run with. It’s always great to show our community another aspect of the phenomenal offerings Brother Rice has for our students.”
Junior Nolan Leonard and senior Jay Jilek handled the commentating and production respectively, streaming the game on Board 1 between freshman Crusader Jayden Jeka who played with the black pieces and Hope Academy’s top player.
Jeka’s win added 12 points to the team score that was already at 47.5 due to wins by Enrique Miranda ‘26 on Board 2, Gehrig Lucas ‘27 on Board 3, Emmett Vaughan ‘28 on Board 4, Teagan Dixon ‘27 on Board 5, and first-time player Robert Kruse ‘28 on Board 6. A loss on Board 7 and a draw on Board 8 due to missing players led to a final score of 59.5 for the Crusader Chess Team and 8.5 for Hope Academy.
The Crusaders finished their regular 2024-2025 season with two dominant wins and eight losses, underscoring that this was a rebuilding year for the team that didn’t exist in 2023-2024 due to the struggle to reform in-person after the pandemic. The record doesn’t show the hours of experience the Crusader Chess players gained as the season progressed, and with a full team they look good to beat some of the teams they lost to during the regular season in their upcoming Chicago Chess Conference Tournament.
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