LCCC Rainbow 6: Siege Esports Team. Courtesy photo It was a celebratory night at the Merrell Student Activity Lounge on Friday as the Laramie County Community College Esports team saw all three teams and individuals competing in the national championships for the NJCAAE pick up victories, highlighted by the Golden Eagles Rainbow 6: Siege team […]
LCCC Rainbow 6: Siege Esports Team.
It was a celebratory night at the Merrell Student Activity Lounge on Friday as the Laramie County Community College Esports team saw all three teams and individuals competing in the national championships for the NJCAAE pick up victories, highlighted by the Golden Eagles Rainbow 6: Siege team earning their third consecutive national title with a win over Guilford Technical Community College in a four hour and fifteen minute long match to cap off an undefeated season.
“We have been together for so long, I think we have just built a chemistry to the extent that we are just unbeatable,” Justin Cherubin said. “Undefeated. What else is there to say? It means we are the best in the country and can’t be beaten.”
The Golden Eagles got off to a hot start in their national championship match against Guilford Technical Community College in Rainbow 6: Siege, taking the first two maps while on the attack.
Things did change as the strategy of packing in their defense worked well for GTCC in the skyscraper map and earned them wins in the next four maps on defense to take a 4-2 lead into the switch.
The Golden Eagles showed their strength on the defensive side as they bounced back to tie the match at 4-4 in the opening two rounds of their defensive set to take momentum back, keeping the run going to take the lead at 5-4 and regain the advantage on the map.
GTCC tied the map back at 5-5 but the Golden Eagles rallied to take the penultimate map and go up 6-5 and looked to avoid overtime in the opening map.
A close out in the match-point map gave the Golden Eagles the 7-5 win and moved them to 1-0 in the best-of-five match.
The team was led in kills in the opening map by Cody Lewis, who was the newest addition to the team.
“It was great, but I couldn’t have done it without my team giving out the right comms and being the great team members they are. Anyone can frag, but as long as you get the right people getting you the right call outs, anyone can do it,” Lewis said.
Map two went to Clubhouse where GTCC took advantage of their map choice to jump out to a 2-0 lead. The Golden Eagles picked up a win to close it to 2-1 early, but dropped the next two as time became a factor and they had to rush trying to plant the defuser.
LCCC picked up the win going into the swap from offense to defense and found themselves in the exact same position as in the first map.
Guilford Tech continued to find ways to win in the opening two rounds of the attack, but LCCC found another win in the third round of their defense to move to 6-3 and find some momentum. They won the next round and forced a timeout by Guilford.
The Titans rallied to win the next map out of the timeout and took the match to tie the game at 1-1 after a 7-4 victory.
The Golden Eagles went to Labs for their selection of the third map looking to take the advantage in what was now a best of three matches.
The energy returned to LCCC as they pushed ahead early with a 2-0 lead, only giving up five deaths in the first two maps. The two sides traded through the rest of the round to send LCCC onto the attack with a 4-2 lead.
“We just knew that we could perform better than they could,” Lewis said of the stronger start after game two. “That was the biggest thing. We just kept getting in our mentals and because of that we gave them that one match. Coach kinda let us know we were better, and we just needed to keep communicating, and because of that, we got back in and just did what we do best.”
The Titans switch the script with three straight wins on defense and forced a timeout from the Golden Eagles with LCCC being pushed into the position of needing to come from behind for the third straight map.
After the timeout, the energy returned, and the Golden Eagle rallied to take the lead back to force match point with a 6-5 lead. The Titans picked up the next round to tie the match, but the Golden Eagles swept them away in overtime to go up 2-1 after taking down Labs 8-6.
On the Console map, the Golden Eagles set themselves up for a chance to take the game in four matches, but saw the Titans take the opening two rounds. LCCC rallied to win the next three and went on the defensive with the match tied at 3-3.
The team picked up the opening win of the defensive set and that sparked the Golden Eagles to a run that led them all the way to closing out the match in dominant fashion, not allowing the Titans to take another round and cruising to a final of 7-3 to clinch their third consecutive national title, and first in the Premier Series, or Tier 1.
It was a team effort in the match, with all five of the student athletes contributing to the win through the game.
Cody Lewis and Kiara Kershaw were strong early while Leondro Ebell and Justin Cherubin helped to close the match out with dominant performances in the final map. Tyler Soffe was a steady presence for the team to rely on, finishing with more than five kills in every map and finishing as one of the top assisters for the Golden Eagles.
“It’s a team. We all come together, and we all keep each other level headed. Even if we lose a round, we say hey, we are going to come back two times harder the next round. It’s as simple as that,” Cherubin said.
The season caps off with the Golden Eagles going an astounding 13-0, and only having dropped four matches throughout the entire season, and all four of those coming in postseason play. The team hasn’t lost a match since the Fall of 2023 and has won over 25 consecutive games in NJCAAE league action in one of the most dominant runs for any team since the NJCAAE came into existence.
“It’s a great accomplishment, honestly,” Lewis said, who picked up his first national title with the team. “This one on a personal note is just huge for me. Even though I’m a little bit older than everyone else, as long as you put in the work you can do it.”
They are expecting to bring back all five competitors for the spring as they look to complete a fourth straight national title which would match them for the most in program history with Call of Duty: Warzone who have won four titles in the last five seasons.
MARIO KART 8
Jesse Wardle gave the spectators in the Merrell Student Activity Lounge some higher blood pressure as for the second time in the postseason, he went all seven maps against Union College of Union County New Jersey on the way to punching his ticket into Saturday’s national championship match for the premier series.
Wardle won the opening race before dropping the next two to the team that took down the number one overall seed.
There was no panic in the Golden Eagle though, and after splitting the next two races, Wardle rallied to close out the maps with wins on the final two races, including a late rally on Rainbow Road in the seventh map to clinch the win.
Wardle is in great position to take the title, as he would need to lose back-to-back matches in the double elimination format to whoever is able to rally in the loser’s bracket on Saturday evening.
The national championship match is scheduled to take place at 3:00 pm on Saturday. Streaming will be hosted at www.twitch.tv/lcccesports.
CALL OF DUTY: WARZONE 3
The duo of Isiaha Ahrens and Tyler Soffe advanced past the opening round of the NJCAAE National Championship with a come from behind win over Guilfort Technical Community College to keep their hopes of winning a fourth straight title in Call of Duty: Warzone on Friday afternoon, rallying from down 2-0 to reverse sweep the Titans and end their season.
The matches started out tough, with the opening round being controlled by GTCC on the way to a 9-5 win, and the Titans followed it up by erasing a 9-0 lead for LCCC in the second game on the way to an 11-5 win that seemed to have the Golden Eagles on the ropes.
Game three turned the momentum around with both Ahrens and Soffe combining for ten kills in their first double digit total, outlasting the Titans on the way to staying alive with a 10-8 win.
That followed with the longest round of the match. The two sides combined for 32 kills, but it was the Golden Eagles who had the edge, finishing with 19 to the Titans 13 to force the game to a fifth match.
The momentum was squarely on the shoulders of LCCC, and they ran away with the fifth, taking it by a count of 9-2 after the GTCC strategy of shadowing the Golden Eagles didn’t pan out to them earning kills, but instead brought them into danger that ended their match early.
With the win, the Golden Eagles qualify for the quarterfinals of the national championship as the #8 seed. They will face off against the top seeded Dallas College – North Lake with the match scheduled to being at 12:30 pm.
