Rainbow Six Seige - 2021 Spring Season in Review

MEQUON, Wis. - The Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) esports Rainbow Six Siege team is truly a Cinderella story. It is the team that didn't even exist at the start of the semester that ended up forming and then advanced into the semifinals of the playoffs that same semester.

CUW esports competed in the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) for their Overwatch, Rocket League, and Hearthstone teams, but later they found out that the NECC also had a league for Rainbow Six Siege. The head coach of CUW esports, Lewis Smith, told me he was able to barely fill a team of five just in time for the league to start. These five players didn't have much time to get comfortable in their team, with their first match being only their fourth time playing together as a team. The team consisted of Sean "SulliMLG" Sullivan, Grant "iSTRIV" Andrada, Jake "Poisoned Luck" Brennan, Paul "Cardboard41" Witto, and Caden "Sonar" Perry. 

The CUW Rainbow Six Siege team ended the regular season with a 5-4 record, finishing as the No. 4 seed in the playoffs. They won the first round of playoffs, beating Arcadia 2-0, but fell to Butler, an undefeated No. 1 seeded team, in the second round. Losing in the playoffs is never a fun experience for the team or fanbase, but to cope with the loss, Coach Smith said, "I just kept thinking about how far we came from the beginning of the semester where we weren't even a team of 5."

I had the chance to talk to Sean about how he thinks the season went, and he said, "Our season ended on a great note, making it to the semi-finals with a team that was thrown together in just a few weeks is extremely promising and I think we will take next season by storm!" I couldn't agree more with Sean, to go from a literal non-existent team to clutching the #4 seed in the playoffs only shows how powerful this Rainbow Six Siege team really is. 

All five members of the team will be returning to CUW next year and will be coming back as a trained team with more practice with each other. This team did not have much time to prepare and get ready for a season, and them having the whole summer to do that after last season is very dangerous for other Rainbow Six Siege teams. The potential for this team is there, and I am sure that they will exceed all expectations.