Eric Volden
Liberal, KS – Big Plays, Bye Weeks, and Playoff Berths.
The Esports teams weekly schedule kicked off again with tough matches for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Luiz Ortiz went up against a player from Brookdale Community College, NJ. Ortiz found himself playing from behind for most of the matches and went down 0 – 2 early. Unfortunately, technical difficulties marred the 3rd set of the night and Ortiz was unable to overcome his foe. Ortiz lost on the night 0 – 3. Marcos Montoya fared much better against the contender from Mesalands Community College, NM. Montoya was up early and put the beatdown on the opposition, winning his sets 3 – 0 in under 15 minutes. A rebroadcast of Ortiz’s game can be found on the Youtube channel.
Due to a weird quirk of the NJCAAE and the Generation Esports queuing system, the Call of Duty 4v4 team got a bye week and did not face an opponent. “Esports works differently than other sports do. With something like volleyball or basketball, the schedule and opponents are set by the national office before the season begins. With esports, our games are scheduled at specific times, but we have no idea who we are going to face until right before the set,” Coach Volden explained. “We join the queue and wait for Generation Esports to match us against another team. Sometimes, if there is an odd number of teams or if one team forfeits before the game starts, you get a bye week. That was just our luck this time.”
Call of Duty will return to play out the rest of the regular season on Tuesdays at approximately 6:45pm.
The Saints Madden team is heading to the playoffs! Akele Powdrill and Dwayne Moran have secured their spot in the post season for the Fall. In Wednesday night’s match up, Powdrill fought off the player from North Central Missouri College, trading sets until Powdrill came out on top with a win at 2 – 1. Powdrill rises one spot this week to claim #5 in the NJCAAE. Moran faced off against the #1 player in the league from Marshalltown Community College. Moran won his first round but couldn’t hold off in the next two games. He ended up losing on the night 1 – 2. Moran retains his position on the national leaderboard at #11. Madden ’24 playoffs start on November 29th.
Kirtland Community College entered the chat to take on the Saints Overwatch team on Wednesday. Julienne Salazar, Eileen Romo, Blake Johnson, John Epp, and Vanessa Ramirez-Molina had a tough set against the crew from KCC. They got up early in the first game, but Kirtland drove the Saints off point and scored the early victory. Swapping positions didn’t help in the next round as the Saints failed to push the payload into the enemy base. After that, it was all KCC. The green team took the “L” and ended the match 0 – 3.
Call of Duty Gunfight returned on Thursday evening. The Saints Green team faced off against Iowa Central Community College. Dwayne Moran and John Epp, subbing in for a sick Jesus Muniz, were engaged in a back and forth contest all evening. The Green team were unable to secure the final match
points in their best of 5 set and lost on the night 0 – 3. Blake Johnson and Landon Davis, Saints Silver team matched up against SUNY Jefferson. Aim, coordination and communication were on point for the silver squad and they took down SUNY in dominating fashion, winning with a score of 3 – 0.
The Valorant team returned to action late Thursday night against Crowder College, MO. The young Saints team went against a more experienced group from Crowder, having two of the top 10,000 players in the world on their team. Despite the higher level of competition, the Saints managed to score more points on the night than they ever had previously. In the end, the skills from Crowder were too hard to overcome and the Saints fell 0 – 2.
#13 Daytona State came to challenge the Saints Rocket League team on Friday. Akele Powdrill, Eileen Romo, Fabian Tarango, and Jesus Muniz felt a little rusty as communication and coordination just wasn’t were it should it have been. Daytona State came out swinging and kept the Saints to one goal for all three sets. The green team ended at 0 – 3 on the night and fell to #24 in the NJCAAE. Despite some technical difficulties during the season, the Rocket League team is also heading to the playoffs. They’ll join in the NJCAAE postseason starting December 1st.
It was another long, tough Friday night for the Saints Rainbow 6 squad as they squared up not only against #5 Pensacola State College, but also massive technical difficulties that marred the match all night. The Saints Blake Johnson disconnected midway through the first set, forcing the rest of the team to play a man down for three point matches before he was able to rejoin. Despite that, the Saints went on to win the first game. Unfortunately, tech difficulties came back with a vengeance in the second round as Aidan Rice was fully kicked from the server at the start. The Saints were down a man completely until the game ended with the PSC win. During the third set of a marathon night, the Saints just couldn’t overcome the team from Pensacola. They lost with a score of 1 – 2.
Matches are streamed Tuesday through Friday at 5:45pm and 6:45pm respectively. You can find them here: