The Esports Weekly Wrap-Up: Oct 23-27

Amelia Green October 23, 2023

Hello, we are into our fifth week of the esports season with highlights on Valorant, and a strong start from Rocket League!

In a fierce face-off with Neumont College’s Varsity Rocket League A-Team, our Vandals win with a series total of 3-1! The beginning was filled with a lack of communication and spotty defense on our side, which allowed the Neumont Llamas to score a few points and even win the second game of the series. However, a second win came for our Vandals as we watched the third game. With a more cohesive team working together, we won the third game 6-0! Leading into a fourth game ending in 3-0! Our players had significant support from the live audience, including enthusiastic parents and friends! This seriously boosted morale for everyone! An aftergame interview with Zachman491 showed the acknowledgment of an early lack of communication, an improvement in said area, and the beautiful plays made in the ending games!

League of Legends also performed admirably against College of Eastern Idaho and Florida International. Against CEI, our Vandals won 2-0 at 22 minutes and 23 minutes respectively. As we often see from our League team, there was communication, backing-up plays, and effective combat all throughout! Unfortunately, our match against Florida international did not go as well. We lost to the mighty panthers 0-2, who had already ranked above us. Though we demonstrated grit and effort, it wasn’t enough. This was a hard lesson for our League players, but it was a lesson, nonetheless.

Counter Strike’s team won by forfeit from Cal State Long Beach, and will face-off against Cal State San Marcos on November 8th at 7pm PST.

HIGHLIGHTS

On Wednesday, our Valorant Vandals see a hard-won success against University of Alaska Fairbanks. This was a very important match for us as it was a battle for second place in the league! UAF was tied with George Fox for first before matching against us, but we pull through with 2-1. Each game was a fierce battle, and we lost the first game in the Breeze map but picked up in the second and third game in Bind and Ascent. The third game was especially heart-stopping towards the end as each team was going back and forth with the rounds. Competition was so fierce that we went into overtime, thankfully winning both final rounds! There were impressive plays on both sides! Somecheese, Blud, and AbandonScorpion were heavy hitters with aggressive plays and takes most of the kills and assists of our Vandals. Kiwii showed amazing initiative with 9 first bloods, and Alligrator is showing his skills in his follow-through, communication, and plants! If I could write the entire match in here, I would. It was so intense and exhilarating to watch! The UAF Nanooks were fantastic competitors throughout the games and showed wonderful skill and cohesion!

Make sure to check out our Twitch @UIdahoEsports to see the wonderful matches each of our teams play every week! GO VANDALS!

Thank you for reading!