Esports Year in Review

June 24, 2022

GV Esports celebrates another fantastic year of competition. With the addition of League of Legends Head Coach David “Draher” Wilson and newly hired Assistant Director Trevor “DreadJoker” Horner, GV Esports brought a lot of new talent across multiple game titles. This year the team secured many program firsts.

League of Legends took home the Midwest Esports Conference trophy with a 1st place finish and ticket to CLoL nationals, narrowly defeated by Western University in round 16 - the first ever GV Esports League of Legends round 16 nationals match. Being knocked out early at HUEFest and Sixty Six Games to a 2nd place finish in both NECC Fall Challenger’s Division and Columbia Invitational, the team saw tremendous growth. Grand View finished in the top 24 Proving Grounds Open Qualifiers competing together as a team in the fall and returning again with Summer Circuit Proving Grounds individually. Players Spencer “Meslo” Gega and Nick “Pluto” Jones joined semi-professional team Supernova, Aaron “Airren” Li joined semi-pro team CLG Faith, and Devin “Kolthro” Drzewucki managing DK Crew all finished with a 3-2 record making top 16.

The JV League of Legends team was also able to take 2nd place in JV Unified Open Spring, 2nd place in AVL, and a playoff run in NECC Fall Challenger’s division. The program graduates Aaron “P1atypus” Wegter and will graduate two more in fall 2022, Devin “Kolthro” Drzewucki and Josh “Koskinen” Koskinen.

Overwatch had a big year as GV Esports built two rosters. The Varsity team finished 1st place at the inaugural Iowa Esports State Championship, 2nd place at OPENLAN, 2nd place at the University of Kentucky Overwatch Spring Invitational 2022, two NECC Legends division playoff runs in Fall and Spring, and a 12th place finish in Overwatch Collegiate Championship Nationals.

The JV team competed in the NECC Fall Navigator’s division and came up just shy of playoffs. They returned to form in NECC Spring Emergent’s Division, moving up an entire division with a 6th place finish. Overwatch graduated five players this year in Hunter Melendez, Fischer Henderson, Madison “S0rin” Standing, Darien “Dex99” Rouse, and Ashley Weaver.

Rocket League took 1st place in a reverse sweep for NECC Fall Challenger’s Division, followed by a 3rd place finish at MAGE Iowa RL LAN. For spring, the team finished 2nd place in NECC Challenger’s Division, qualifying for an NECC nationals run. They finished in the top 18. The team graduates Sam “dior” Foley, a cornerstone for the Rocket League team during his time at Grand View.

Valorant began their return to form this spring, picking up Allan “FunkShway” Brewer and the development of two teams, both qualifying for NECC nationals in their respective divisions and a quarterfinal finish at OPENLAN 2022. The team is happy to graduate another player, Wyatt “Wyotto” Worley, but is sad to see him go. Even still, they are looking forward to seeing even more from their teams for 2022-23.

Fortnite players Cameron “Cubawabi” Wabeke, Jacob “Coachddt” Thomas and Brian “H1ghts” Kolpek finished in the top half of PlayVS Fall Collegiate series session 1, with H1ghts securing top 100 in session 3 of over 700 competitors. New changes to the PlayVS Fortnite Collegiate Competition circuit took place this year and the team will look to participate in new tournaments for 2022-23.

All in all, Grand View Esports is proud to showcase the talent they have and continue to develop. Expect to see GV Esports in all of your power rankings for 2022-23 as the program grows and becomes stronger every year, reaching new milestones as they go!