In our effort to share more college esports coverage Checkpoint XP On Campus brings to you our College Esports Match of The Week. Our inaugural game comes from Week 3 of the Overwatch Collegiate Championships.
THE Battle for Ohio
As the national, swiss bracket format gets underway, the Midwestern powerhouses of Maryville, Northwood and Akron are all looking to make big splashes. But by last weekend another school threw their name in the hat as an elite Overwatch squad. THE Ohio State took on cross state rivals Miami of Ohio in a thrilling 3-map set.
Starting on Ilios, it became clear that Miami (OU) was ready for violence. OSU’s star hitscan DPS player, Performance, started out the first fight of the match with a couple quick elims but Miami wouldn’t go down quietly. CGS for Miami would help take the advantage for their team with a massive three kill Deadeye. Two Team Kills later Miami looked to have a comfortable win.
However, moving to the second round OSU scrapped out a very tough win to force a round 3. In the Ruins area of Ilios, Miami made a couple of first fight errors that gave OSU an advantage. Switching CGS to Widow meant that the entry battle would essentially be 5 v 6. And Miami’s Fahzix fell early and got constantly peeled by OSU’s Yan on D-Va. But in the last fight of round 3, OSU’s main tank Potatoes went nuts with a 4k streak and won map 1.
The Comeback On?
Map 2 was King’s Row and Miami woke all the way up, on their initial attack the synergy between Heartache and CGS was telepathic. Just about every Grav from Miami got maximum value. However, OSU would swap to Orisa and Grab and put up a stalwart defense. But Miami would complete the push with 54 seconds left. After a strong push from OSU, overtime came through and MU swapped over to a Rein/Sigma frontline that really held and forced a Map 3.
The final map of Route 66 was the Grab show. The DPS player for OSU was the perfect counter to the double shield composition of Miami. Grab would rain hell upon the Miami front line and leave them totally exposed for Performance to click heads. Eventually, THE Ohio State won out and claimed the match win. Unfortunately, for Miami of Ohio the Sombra was simply not working for them and their unwillingness to be more flexible wit their composition would be their undoing. When asked about how their DPS was so effective Grab said Performance is easily the cornerstone of the team.
“For me it has to be Performance….we just have that sort of syngery where we can just bank off of each other and I think you guys can definitely see that in game.”
Ohio State’s, Grab, in a post match interview.
The Midwest Got Something To Say
Over the past two years the biggest jump in college esports talent has come from the Midwest. While many folks seem to think that the entire industry still remains on the West Coast, the Southern US and the middle of the country made great strides to be competitive. One state that immediately comes to mind is Ohio. Later in the weekend, OSU went on to beat the defending champion Utah Utes in a dark match. And the University of Akron won that day as well, defeating Missouri.
That was the College Esports Match of The Week! Let us know if there’s a game you want us to break down on Checkpoint On Campus!