College Esports Match Of The Week: Purdue Styles On Columbia
This week’s Match of the Week honors take us to College League of Legends (CLOL), where Purdue University took on Columbia College in the quarterfinals of the regional playoffs. The best 3 out of 5 match ended with Purdue showing up strong and taking three straight games off Columbia. It’s a pretty major upset, so let’s take a look at what happened.
Game 1: Olaf Happens
An ongoing theme of this match was that Purdue University seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted. With the exception of a few minutes during the second half of game 2, Columbia College was almost always on the back foot and stuck playing reactionary League of Legends. Spoiler: The reactionary team usually loses.
In game 1, Purdue’s jungler Clam locked in Olaf and it lead to a clown fiesta in the early game. A failed 5 man gank at bottom lane lead to a invasion of Columbia’s jungle where Clam was able to kill the enemy Hecarim. Clam never looked back, helping spur the team on to victory with a 6/1/10 KDA. A 10/0/7 performance by Purdue’s 4rch on Tristana sealed Columbia’s fate in game 1.
Game 2: Failure to close
Game 2 looked like it was going to be more of the same. Purdue went wherever Purdue pleased as they got out to an early lead and carried it through the mid game. It looked like it would be a slaughter until Columbia’s ADC BukZacH landed a 4 man ultimate on Ezreal that lead to a major come back.
Columbia dominated the next few minutes, leaving Perdue with naught but their Nexus turrets remaining. They failed to close out the match however, and Purdue clawed their way back into it by securing an elder dragon, stopping a back door attempt by Rovex’s Ekko, and finally taking the baron. From there, they took a major team fight outside Columbia’s base and pushed for the win.
Game 3: The Wheels Come Off
Game 3 is where it all fell apart for Columbia College. Despite losing the first two matches, they had some signs of life in the second game and reason to believe.
Instead, everything went wrong in the final game of the set. An early pair of kills lead to a 3-0 deficit for Columbia. A three man gank at top got Columbia on the board, but it went all down hill after that.
Strong play by Purdue got them out to a 7-1 lead. Columbia made a strong play under turret to kill Braum and Lucian, but poor turret aggro control lead to them losing two players in exchange.
With a 9-3 lead, Purdue put their feet on the gas and never looked back. At 24 minutes, they lead the game 17-8 with a 6k gold lead. They take a 3-0 win against Columbia College and advance in the playoffs.
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Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games