CHAMPAIGN — Uni opened the 2007-08 chess season by defeating Stanford Olympia Thursday night at Parkland College.

This year, the varsity team consists of junior Gordon Ruan (board 1), senior Alex Zhai (2), senior Geoffrey Beck (3), junior Alan Liang (4), junior Greg Atherton (5), and sophomore Daniel Cheng (6).

Uni swept Olympia with wins on all six boards, with a final score of 58-0. (The games on boards 1 through 6 are worth 13, 11, 10, 9, 8, and 7 points, respectively.)

"This is a nice start for our chess team," said Ruan. "Hopefully we can continue winning our matches by large margins."

In individual junior varsity matches, junior Jason He and freshman Youyang Gu each won both of the two games they played. Sophomore Daniel Wilson lost his first game but won his second.

Next Thursday, the Uni chess team will play Bismarck-Henning at Parkland College.

Last year Uni placed eighth at the IHSA state chess tournament, a remarkable accomplishment considering that schools of all sizes compete against each other in one division. If the tournament had been divided into two classes according to enrollment, Uni would have won the Class A state title.