WHS eSports Attends Winter State Finals

The winter season for WHS’s eSports team went great, seeing the Overwatch 2 team qualify for State the second year in a row since the team’s creation. The Rocket League team also had a huge improvement compared to its performance last year and won five out of the seven matches. However, the end of the season was an anti-climactic ending for both teams as the Rocket League team fell short in their play-off match, and the Overwatch team got two unfortunate match-ups at State.

Senior Kamryn Boatright, tank for the Overwatch team, said that he thinks the team was as prepared as they were for State last year, but the bracket order was the part that messed them up. “The problem is we went up against better teams first this year,” he said, “instead of last year where we had one good team and everyone else was really easy.” Perks were a new system introduced to Overwatch a week before State meaning they could never have been a part of the competition with such a quick turn-around, however, Boatright thinks they could have been the key the team needed to win. “A lot of the perks lean towards people being individual playmakers… I think we would have a better chance because a lot of the abilities are not team focused.”

This year saw a new designated coach for the Rocket League team, Coach Kessel, who was able to unite the team and get them to practice more. Because of this slower start, the team was put at a slight disadvantage compared to most teams, but immediately started seeing the results in their matches. “From the get-go we were trying to develop and practice skills that students at other schools have been practicing for years at this point. As a team, we grew rapidly and went from bottom of our division to the top three in a span of months.” Kessel plans to continue working with the team next year to iron out the players’ strengths and weaknesses to make sure they can counter all different kinds of opponents– something they hadn’t practiced very much before the play-off match.

The spring season of eSports can see three different titles featured at the same time: League of Legends on Mondays, Mario Kart 8 on Tuesdays, and Valorant on Thursdays. While two of the teams qualified for and placed third at state last year, the Mario Kart team is more determined to join them in the 2025 season. “I think with Mario Kart having a different format this year, we’ll be able to work together better as a team as well as get a chance to just play better,” said team captain, senior Oran Jackson. The title has seen a change to the overall structure of matches going from a 2v2v2 against two other schools to a 4v4 against one team. “We’ll be able to play more people at a time, which leads to greater cooperation as well as playing with the in-game team setting so we can’t directly hurt each other,” said Jackson.

Practices are held in room 331 from 3:15 to 4:15 and competitions are held and streamed online on their respective days starting the week after spring break.