Notre Dame Gladiators - eSports Season Update

Notre Dame participated in their 2nd Spring season and has two teams that have a shot of making it to Nationals again this year. They introduced two new competitive teams to expand our League Team roster from 25 to 38 students total this year. Some students participated on multiple teams. Here is a breakdown of the individual teams and their progress:

NEW TEAMS

• Marvel Rivals, 6v6 - 10-man roster. 3 wins, 4 losses. Good first showing for a brand new team in one of the most competitive games in the league
• Valorant, 5v5 - 8-man roster. 4 wins, 3 losses. Another good first showing with another very competitive game. They made progress as a team, starting 1-2 and winning 3 out of their last 4 games. 

RETURNING TEAMS

• Mario Kart 8, 4v4 - 12-man roster. 6 wins, 1 loss. The only loss was from a forfeit due to a track meet that prevented us from fielding a team. Made it to the playoffs, currently ranked 2nd in the East due to strength of schedule. Their first playoff match is Wednesday, April 16 @ 5 p.m. This team legitimately has a shot to win the East and make a 2nd appearance at Nationals. This is the team that took 3rd last year at Nationals. They also won the Winter Blitz (winter season).
• Splatoon 3, 4v4 - 8-man roster. 5 wins, 2 losses. One loss came from a forfeit due to a track meet that prevented us from fielding a team. Made it to the playoffs, currently ranked 5th in the East. Their first playoff match is Tuesday, April 15 @ 5 p.m. This team also has a strong shot at making a 2nd appearance at Nationals this year. This team took 9th at Nationals last year.
• Brawlhalla, 1v1 - 2-man roster. Jordan Dillard made it to the Gold Bracket playoffs and will play his first match on Tuesday, April 15 @ 7:30 p.m. Jordan took 2nd in the East last year and made it to the wild card round of Nationals. 
• Minecraft Bed Wars, 4v4 - 4-man roster. This team started 2-0. Due to Spring sports starting, though, the team stopped participating due to overlap with track, tennis, and lacrosse.

The eSports team also had students participate in Fortnite and Super Smash Bros. at an intramural level.

MARIO KART 8 UPDATE

The Mario Kart 8 competitive team continued their winning seasons throughout the Winter and Spring. In the winter season (the Winter Blitz), they were crowned the champions, competing against over 50 teams throughout the nation. In their Spring season, they competed in the Eastern region against 80 other teams. They made it to the Finals and finished 2nd overall in the East. The team was composed of Team Captain Simeon Salins, Max Whittle, AJ Crawford, Zach Malus, Thomas Italia, and Ben Helsel. Next year, this team will be entering both the national High School eSports League as well as the Garden State League to have opportunities to win more scholarship dollars.