Overwatch - Spring ‘21 in Review

Written by Josh Klausmeier

MEQUON, Wis. - Overwatch is a very strategic video game with six people on a team and each role-playing a vital part of the team. However, too much of one role on a team will cause that team to not perform well. On the other hand, Overwatch is not as popular as a collegiate esport, but that doesn't stop Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) esports, run by head coach Lewis Smith, from forming a team and competing. 

The CUW Overwatch team competed for their first season as a team in the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) in the Navigators division. The starting six players were Rebecca "Artemis' Gehm, Tony "Mcola321" Mastrocola, Caleb "RickDazzle" Durst, Margaret "Duckinator" Vesey, Nick "Pectus" Adelmund, and Joel "SoPeaked" Roth. Coach Smith told me, "The first season is always kind of tough. It's building the behavior with all the students to take practice seriously, matches seriously, and to want that feeling of competing and improving." It was not the greatest start to their first season, as they had a couple of players playing out of position. CUW Overwatch won their first game of the season but ended up losing their next four starting the season 1-4. After Week 5 was the turning point for the team. 

After week 5 ended, the team regrouped to assess what wasn't working, and that is when some players moved positions and additions were added to the team. Rebecca switched positions on the team, going from Damage Per Second (DPS) to Support, and Joel filled in the role at DPS. The team also added Andrew Wahl as an Overwatch coach to help the team grow in knowledge and skill. Coach Smith said, "I like being the coach for Overwatch and helping everything be organized, but hiring Andrew was a really big boost for the team." Andrew had been playing Overwatch for years and he was able to bring high-level game knowledge to the team. After regrouping, the team won their next four matches to close the season 5-4 and clinched the #4 seed in playoffs. 

In the first round of playoffs, CUW beat Randolph-Macon 3-1, which CUW had previously lost to Randolph-Macon earlier in the season. In the second round of playoffs, CUW played Fresno State, which was a very close series the whole time. The series was best of 5, meaning the first team to three wins the series. To start the series, Fresno won the first game, but CUW came back and won the second game and the third game to take the series 2-1. Fresno won the fourth game to tie the series 2-2. The fifth game went into overtime and ended with Fresno State winning that game, concluding the series 3-2. The team and Coach Smith ended very happily with how the season went. "It was a very successful year. The amount of growth that our team had from week 1 to second round of playoffs was the most growth I have seen within one semester for any esport within our program."

I had the pleasure to talk to Andrew on his thoughts on how the season went and he told me, "In an extremely promising inaugural season, a team of people who hadn't really played together coalesced into a team. Through a season that featured a ton of changes, we were able to discover our identity as a team, shocked the division in the playoffs, and laid the groundwork to make some more noise next year." Tony, the team captain, shared with me his expectations on next season. "I'm extremely excited for next season. We had a rough beginning this past season and making it as far as we did in the playoffs only shows how much potential we have. I'm proud of my teammates for what we did and I'm sure they are as ready for next season as I am to smash some skulls."

This Overwatch team is one of the most impressive teams to me. The ability for a team to reassess mid-season and completely switch up how they were playing, and then go on to win the rest of their games after is incredibly impressive. And the fact that all six players are coming back next season after having so much time over the summer to work together under the winning regime they created is telling me that there is no doubt in my mind that this will be a championship contending team.