Esports Weekly Wrap-Up: Feb 5th – 10th
Amelia Green Feb 5th, 2024
Hello, Vandal fans! This week, we had a few events lined up. Beginning Monday, there were two JV RL matches, R6 Varsity and JV matches, an EAFC match, and one CS2 game. Following that, Tuesday had a full day of Apex, Overwatch Varsity and JV matches, three Street Fighter matches, and Valorant Varsity and JV matches competing in their leagues; it will be Overwatch’s first NACE league matches. Wednesday focused on Valorant Varsity, Valorant JV, Overwatch Varsity, and Overwatch JV; Valorant will compete in their first NACE matches. Smash, two TFT games, EAFC, two Mortal Kombat matches, and two R6 games take over the lab on Thursday. Friday was relaxed as there were only two LoL matches, an Omega Strikers match and the last CS2 match of the week. Our final event of the week was a Chess.com match on Saturday.
We had much success on Monday. To begin, our CS2 team went against Buffalo St. University and won the series 2-0. In tandem with this match, RL JV 1 went against New Mexico State University and unfortunately lost 3-0. However, throughout the game, our Vandals fought hard in each game and were even able to defend against 11 of 15 shots attempted by NMSU. Afterward, we watched RL JV 2 go against Stephen F Austin State University. This was a 3-1 win for the Vandals, with some fairly devastating score differences. Specifically, the second game which ended 10-0. EAFC won against Rogers State University in the middle of the chaos. The final events of Monday were the R6 matches; to begin, Varsity lost to St. Mary’s, 0-2. R6 JV had no more luck against Muskingum University at 0-2.
Tuesday was much fun as Apex had their second ECAC match alongside the Smash Weekly bracket. In Apex, we achieved 7th place in the first match with three kills. Following that, we got 8th place with 6 kills. In the final game, our Vandals got 15th place. ECAC has yet to update rankings in the league, so we are tentatively still in 6th place. The Weekly bracket had many contestants and much support! There were 17 competitors, and the final winner turned out to be between Spyre and Kiosk, ending with Kiosk winning 3-2. Following these fantastic events, there was an Overwatch match in which we went against the University of Houston in the NACE league. The game ended 3-1 in our favor! There were also Street Fighter matches in ECAC: Droe vs. University of Louisiana – Lafayette and Jack vs. Keiser University. Droe won 3-0; Jack unfortunately lost via forfeit. The final game featured on Tuesday was Valorant, both Varsity and JV. Varsity went against Husson University, while JV competed against St. John Fisher University. This resulted in Varsity winning 2-0 and JV winning 2-0!
Valorant and Overwatch commandeered the lab for Wednesday night in both NACE and ECAC competitions! Unfortunately, the Vandal Overwatch Varsity team was forced to forfeit due to scheduling conflicts for two members, but Overwatch JV had a win via forfeit. As for Valorant in the NACE league, JV went against DePaul University and gave a fierce fight. The series concluded as 1-2 in favor of the Blue Demons. The first game was so intense we went into OT only to lose the game 12-14. Following that, our Vandal’s chosen map was Icebox, leading to our win at 13-6! The final match occurred in Lotus, and we lost 9-13 after a struggle. While there was quite the show between Val JV and the Blue Demons, there was no such competition for the Varsity team. Matched against Colorado School of Mines, our Vandals won the first game 13-6; then ramped up the energy in the Split map and won 13-0. This is an insane achievement that we at the Esports Program were very excited about!
Thursday was filled with R6 and Smash Varsity. R6 was a JV game against the University of Guam that concluded 2-0 in favor of the Vandals. The second game ended as a shut-out, demonstrating the skill of our R6 team! As for Smash Varsity, they went up against Texas A&M and earned a series score of 2-0! While other games weren’t present on stream, there were still some exciting matches to report! Unfortunately, our Streetfighter team member, Galion, lost this week’s match against Kean University. On the other hand, TFT’s Doom won 1st and 4th in his lobby, while TFT’s Hood had 4th and 7th at the end of the day. Our Mortal Kombat matches had some dichotomy; Android lost 0-3 against Elmira College, and Bernt won 3-0 against Adrian College! Rather impressive skill all around. The final league game played was EAFC, Bobo vs Lindenwood, which was lost 1-2.
To conclude the week, Friday had Omega Strikers, LoL, and CS2 Varsity competing with mostly favorable results. Omega Strikers won 2-0 against the Long Island Sharks, with 9-1 scoring in both games. This means that our Vandal Omega Strikers team is currently undefeated and projected to follow closely to this pattern. LoL lost both games against Texas A&M but fought hard the entire time. The first game went for a little over half an hour before a team fight truly shifted the tides in our opponent. The final match of the night was CS2 Varsity vs University of Washington. As Washington is one of the top-ranked teams, it was not surprising that the loss was 0-2; however, some significant positives came from the match! We lost the first game 1-13 but picked ourselves up so well that the second game was an awe-inspiring 9-13 that challenged the Huskies!
Schedule for next week:
Monday the 12th: SSBU Varsity vs Southwestern Assemblies of God, CS2 vs Buffalo State University, R6 Varsity and JV, EAFC thejalili and Bobo, RL JV1 vs Waukesha County Technical College, RL JV2 vs Alexandria Technical & Community College, and RL Varsity vs University of Alaska Fairbanks
Tuesday the 13th: Apex Varsity, SF Droe, SF Jack, SF Galion, Val Varsity vs Stockton University Blue, Overwatch 2 Varsity vs Neumont, Overwatch 2 JV vs Guam University
Wednesday the 14th: Overwatch 2 Varsity, Overwatch 2 JV, Val Varsity vs Redlands University, Val JV vs Colorado School of Mines
Thursday the 15th: TFT Hood, TFT Doom, MK1 Burnt vs Adrian College, MK1 Android vs Elmira College, R6 Varsity vs Stone Child College, R6 JV vs Concordia University, and Smash Varsity vs Redlands University
Friday the 16th: LoL Varsity vs Stackton University, LoL JV vs Catawba College, Omega Strikers, and CS2 Varsity vs University of Alberta
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