Busy Week for HU Esports
After facing three straight losses, HU’s Overwatch team came back refreshed from Fall Break determined to keep fighting in the GLEC. HU played in two rescheduled mid-week matches against #2-ranked Mount Union (3-1) and 11th placed Manchester (1-3).
HU faced off against Mount Union first on Tuesday night. The Foresters gained a quick lead in the first round of Game 1, taking Mount Union by surprise and forcing a composition change. Mount Union pushed back to take Game 1. In Game 2, Junior Derek Harper managed to sneak past a bunkered Mount Union on Hollywood in the final seconds of Round 1 to grab the lead. HU then proceeded to shut out Mount Union in the remaining round. Junior Zachariah “ProZach” Lail sealed the deal with a Junkrat team kill in overtime. You can click here to see that play of the game along with the entire replay posted on the HU Esports YouTube channel.
This was the first time our Overwatch players were able to overcome a varsity team in the GLEC. Mount Union would go on to win Games 3 and 4 and ultimately win the match, but this small win was a much-needed morale boost to the team. The next day they faced off against Manchester University, fresh off their first win of the season against Marietta just the previous weekend.
Wednesday night, HU started off strong with an overtime Round 3 win in Game 1, featuring 29 eliminations by Junior Josiah “Jynjer” Gold. The Foresters went on to take Game 2 as well with 40 eliminations by Tyler “T-Brain” Brown. Games 1 and 2 both featured play-of-the-game deadeyes from Prozach on McCree. Manchester fought back hard starting in Game 3, stretching out to Game 5, in the most exciting Overwatch match of the season for the Foresters. In the end, Manchester won 3-2, advancing to 8th place in the GLEC.
“It’s definitely a morale battle when you win two and then lose two,” says Overwatch Team Captain ProZach.
“We’ve really found our groove with a defense composition that we feel a lot more competent with. In Game 3, Manchester swapped one of their DPS to Tank and one of their Support to DPS. They may have tried out a new selection of roles for those players, so I think they defaulted back to their main [characters] after those two rounds. The [Pharah-Mercy combo] was still a pretty big problem in the last couple games, but we did a better job minimizing their effectiveness. We ran into a combo in Game 4 on Volskya with Bastion that we hadn’t really had to deal with before. We’ll definitely be talking through strategies on dealing with that if it comes up again.”
A replay of Wednesday’s match is posted on Manchester University’s Twitch page.
Click here to watch at twitch.tv/ManchesterUniversity
HU Esports Upcoming Matches:
Friday 10/22 6:00 p.m. – Smash Bros. vs. Mount Vernon
Saturday 10/23 10:00 a.m. – Smash Bros. vs. Saint Francis
Wednesday 10/27 5:30 p.m. – Overwatch vs. Mount Vernon
