While many of our secondary students are lacing up their boots for Sydney Catholic Schools semis and finals in traditional school sports like netball, football and rugby league, another group of students have been competing in the recent SCS Conference Chess Championships in the hope of advancing to the Sydney Catholic Schools Chess Championships at the end of June to be held at Rosebank College.
With the restructuring of sport throughout Secondary schools, chess was one of the many new sports introduced and has continued to grow.
Students play as part of their school team in one of three divisions, like most other sports, and play a total of five to six games in a day to decide who is crowned champions.
Unlike other sports, however, there is no actual final with the top teams drawn against each other throughout the day.
In Conference 1, spoils were shared among three schools, with Marcellin College Randwick taking out the juniors, Corpus Christi Maroubra winning the intermediates, and Christian Brothers Lewisham winning the seniors.
Conference 2 was dominated by Marist College Eastwood, which won all three divisions.
Conference 3 saw Marist schools continue to assert their talents, with Marist College Kogarah winning both the Juniors and Intermediates and Marist College Penshurst taking out the coveted Senior division.
In the final tournament, the Conference 4 winners were Patrician Brothers Fairfield in the Juniors and All Saints Liverpool in both the Intermediates and Senior divisions.
One school that has seen a massive increase in both student involvement and success is Marist College Kogarah.
The chess coordinator at Kogarah, Amiee Hesson, has worked extremely hard to allow students to develop their chess skills.
Students have afternoon training as well as the opportunity to enter competitions throughout the year.
As a result of the students’ passion for the sport, success has followed with the College winning the Conference 3 Juniors competition for a third straight year as well as winning the Intermediates for a second year.
“What began as a passionate team of just twelve chess enthusiasts has flourished into a thriving group of over 60 students from all year levels at Kogarah,” she said.
“With such incredible growth, we now run competitive selection trials for tournaments—proof of how far we’ve come. But what truly defines our success isn’t just the numbers or the trophies. It’s the culture we’ve built.”
Hesson said rebranding chess as a ‘cool’ sport has engaged the entire student body at the College.
“Kogarah’s older students play a huge part in this journey, mentoring younger players who may have never competed before,” she said
“Their support creates a welcoming environment where every student feels empowered to represent the school in graded and open competition, and at Kogarah, we’ve made it clear chess is a powerful form of mental exercise, and it’s a worthy way to represent our school and showcase the gifts each student possesses.”
Hesson concluded by saying, “This isn’t just about playing chess. It’s about building resilience, community, and pride in what we can achieve together!”
One student with exceptional ability in Kogarah’s winning Junior team is Damien Skepevski, who said winning the tournament was an amazing feeling.
“Tournament chess is so exciting,” he said.
“One of the best feelings is when you know you have the game won, and to clinch first place after a tense final match filled with tactical traps, the sense of achievement was overwhelming.”
With four teams progressing to the Sydney Champions, Marist College Kogarah will be hoping to turn Conference success into Sydney Gold.
