On March 24 and April 8, the Valorant and League of Legends teams of the esports program competed in the national esports collegiate conference playoffs. The League of Legends team entered the playoffs as the number two seed, while the Valorant team entered the playoffs by breaking a three-way tie to earn the number eight seed.
Unfortunately for the Valorant squad, they lost 2-0 to the one-seed University of Oklahoma, ending their season at 9-20. The League of Legends team made it all the way to the finals, but they fell to Fuel Esports Academy 3-1, ending their season at 14-4.
While the League of Legends team did not win the playoffs, they do see their season overall as a huge success, not only for their team and game, but also for the esports program as a whole as it continues to grow. Sophomore Rylon Hall is one team member who has seen the progress and is happy about where the team is now.
“I would say our season was good,” Hall said. “We had a good run in the playoffs this year. We were the fourth seed in the finals for the playoffs. We did win in the fall last year, but I think we’re good, and we had a good run in the playoffs this year. I think that compared to last year, it is better.”
The Valorant team has gone through many ups and downs regarding the roster and program as a whole, which have held back their level of play this season. Over the past two seasons, the team has won at least 25 games, but this year, they only won ten. One of the few seniors on the team, Mason Love, has seen a huge change throughout his time with the team.
“There were massive changes to our rosters and schedule. We had a big piece of the team graduate last year, and another teammate fell back to focus on his academics, which the team had nothing but support for,” Love said. “So, we had new teammates fill in their spots, and we ended up cutting out a day of practice from our schedule.”
Although the Valorant team experienced major changes early on, it stayed strong together and continued to work hard to improve its game throughout the remainder of the season.
“We had a big team shift early in the spring semester, so it took some time for us to get our chemistry built up with our new teammates,” Love said. “Although it was a bit out of our control, we did pick it up near the end of the semester where it really mattered and managed to get our place in the playoffs by pushing all our effort into our remaining games.”
While conference play is over for the Valorant squad, they still have another chance to compete with one another and against another school at a yearly tournament at a nearby university for bragging rights.
For senior Donovan Garro, competing in tournaments isn’t just about the best players competing or winning; a considerable part of it is making memories for the graduating seniors in one of their last tournaments of the season.
“We have a tournament at St. Ambrose that they host every year that we’ll get to participate in,” Garro said. “We’ve won it once and lost once. So right now, our goal is to have all of our graduating seniors play, and we’re just gonna go in there and compete and hopefully come out on top.”