St. Edward's Esports has brought home its first major championship! The St. Edward's Call of Duty Academy team ran through the competition on its way to claim the title this past weekend in the College CoD (CCL) Academy League playoffs. College CoD (CCL) is the "majors" of collegiate Call of Duty. It is split into two divisions, Main and Academy. Schools that field more than one Call of Duty team must put one team in the Main Division and one in the Academy Division.
The St. Edward's Call of Duty Academy team played with substitute Paul "Jackie" Tegan, who recently graduated, for the first half of the regular season. He went on to be one of the best objective players in the academy league averaging 2 minutes and 10 seconds of hill time in the "hardpoint" game mode (most objective-based players only averaged 1 to 1 ½ minutes per game), where your goal is to have someone sit on the "hill" to be the first team to get 250 seconds (aka points) or have a higher score than the other team after the clock runs out. The team finished 6-1 in stage one (first half of season), only losing a closely contested battle with Independence Community College's academy team. In stage two (second half) of the regular season, Lukas "Kruk" Watts made his way back into the roster in the second week of play against the Air Force Academy Esports' academy team. The squad would go on to finish undefeated in stage two. They beat playoff-bound teams, like Texas State, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M's academy teams, with ease. Andrew "Relck" Garza ended up as one of the top 10 players, statistically across all game modes, in the entire academy league. Andrew also led a community initiative to recognize the talents of those in the academy league by creating the voting system for the "CCL Academy All-Stars". Players and coaches from around the league voted for MVP, Team of the Year and their 1st and 2nd teams for each region (East & West). We had two players voted into the 1st-team West All-Stars: Andrew "Relck" Garza and Nathan "Fiasco" Gonzales and one player into the 2nd-team West All-Stars: Lukas "Kruk" Watts. Scott "Combat" Swartz missed the bid by one vote, but still finished as one of the top 50 players in the league statistically. St. Edward's University was tied with Kennesaw State for the most all-stars.
The team hit new form when it came to the College CoD (CCL) Academy League playoffs. They would go on to beat Northwood University's academy team in the first round (3-1), the Fighting Illini's academy team in round two (3-0), Redbird CoD Academy (Illinois State) in round three (3-0) and Kennesaw State's academy team in the winner's finals (3-1). The Hilltoppers gave the Kennesaw State Owls academy team their first loss of the entire season as they propelled themselves into the grand finals where they ultimately would face off against the Owls once again for all the marbles. Dropping only two maps with no losses the entire playoff run, the St. Edward's Academy team was able to call themselves the very first CCL Academy champions!
They are now able to kick back and cheer their fellow teammates on in the Main roster as they prepare to travel to Columbus, Ohio, for the very first CCL playoffs on LAN. St. Edward's is the only school in all of College CoD that has the chance to win the championship in both the main league and academy league. The academy roster completed their mission. Can the team on the Main roster do it? Make sure to tune in June 11-12 to see!
