Waubonsee Community College's Esports team is set to compete in the NJCAA playoffs for Rocket League (RL) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (SBU) over the course of this week. Coach Jarod Ericksen's RL trio of Zachary Stephenson, Timothy Schramek and Cameron Davis have been paired up against second-seeded John Wood (IL) Community College. The Chiefs (6-2) are scheduled to take on the Blazers (8-2) tomorrow evening December 8, beginning at 5:30 p.m. CDT. The best four-out-of-seven match can be seen online at www.Twitch.TV/WaubonseeChiefs. Second round matches are scheduled to take place on Dec. 10 with the finals played on Dec. 13.
Out of 176 student-athletes participating nationwide, two Chiefs finished among the top-32 players in SBU to qualify for the post-season tournament. Robert Erickson went 7-1 overall in his matches this fall, while teammate Yael Redmond finished 6-2. The duo will be competing throughout the week with the finals of the SBU Tournament to be held on Dec. 13. Erickson downed multiple opponents from junior colleges in Michigan, New York and Kansas during the regular season. Redmond scored victories over players from Utah, Iowa and Michigan over the last two months. Waubonsee's Jacob Loizzo went 3-5 during the season and Alex Lindquist finished 2-6, with neither of them qualifying for the playoffs.
Rocket League is a fast paced, soccer-like video game in which three players on each team, utilizing rocket-powered cars, work together to knock the ball into the opposing team's goal and prevent it from entering their own. Each 5-minute game is conducted on a field without boundaries, and the clock only stops when a goal is scored. Each match played is a best four-out-of-seven series. Over 60 community college's nationwide are currently fielding Esports programs.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a fighting game in which players work against one another to knock the other out of the arena within an 8-minute battle. In tournament play the participants fight one-on-one, choosing from a roster of characters from Nintendo and other third-party franchises. During the one-on-one battle each participant has three stocks (or lives) that must be reduced to zero before one fighter wins. Throughout the course of the battle each player accumulates damage, represented by the percentage displayed by their characters frame on the lower portion of the screen. The higher percentage of damage, the more easily they can be knocked out of the arena. However, this counter resets upon losing a stock.