JV Rocket League Season Wrap-Up: Dec 18th
Amelia Green Dec 18, 2023
Our Vandals Junior Varsity Rocket League team has had some downs and many ups throughout the traditional season and the tournament. We began the season with began with a win against New Mexico State University, and we ended it with a struggled loss against the University of South Dakota in the tournament.
There was much discovery in way of team composition, communication, and individual improvement. In the beginning, Sarahs226 was primarily support and defense with little offensive or aggressive plays. However, throughout the season, she had shown much growth in a support role that can display an aggressive stance and make the pushes necessary to set up a shot for her teammates. Overall, a great player that we were lucky to have. Speaking of lucky, LuckyLuke was another of our players that made amazing progress. Though it may not have been as noticeable as Sarahs226’s improvement, he grew in his role exponentially! It went mostly unseen because he already knew his role, he just got better at execution. Luke771414 is another of our players; he was aggressive and often lead when he was on the field, but he also knew when to drop back for defense. Pinhead300 began the season much like Sarahs226 as a primarily support role but melded soon with Tomere and DubtheBoss as one of our more aggressive and technical players! He still played support, just a much more aggressive support – not unlike a wing midfielder of a soccer game. Tomere is one of our MVPs with high technical ability, aggression, high mobility, and great control. Overall, a monster in the arena! DubtheBoss is a similar player, but more in an offensive position while Tomere can drop to defense easier. An improvement seen in DubtheBoss was his growth in defensive techniques! Truly, our Vandals were very versatile in team composition.
Our final game of the season was the first round of play-offs in a single-round elimination tournament against the University of South Dakota. Initially, we believed that we were a rather even match, but the playstyle of the Coyotes quickly overwhelmed our Vandals. The first game, we lost 0-2. There was a lack of aggression on our part, and we almost never crossed the midfield line. Our second game of seven went better but not good enough: 2-4. Once again, we fell two points behind. The following games didn’t go nearly as well. Despite better playing and more aggression on the part of our Vandals, the Coyotes won the third game 0-3 and the fourth game 0-6. It was a disappointing loss, but there are plans for further improvement next semester’s season.