The Call of Duty esports team faced off against the only team they lost to in regular season last year and lost to in the semi-finals, Oklahoma Christian University, on Feb. 27. At 8 p.m., Hilltoppers tentatively squared off against the currently number one ranked esports team in the College XP (CXP) Call of Duty league.
The first match, Hardpoint, was played on map Skidrow. Hardpoint consists of teams competing to gain control of an objective area that changes locations around the map, and when uncontested, the team will accumulate one point per second. The first team to gather 250 points wins the match. It had a close beginning: St. Edward’s led by 10 points, but then OCU stretched the lead to 27-77. OCU then broke the 100-point threshold while the Hilltoppers had 58. Then, St. Edward’s started closing the gap, getting as close as 96-116, and later 105-130. David “Eons” Sauseda even had a five-kill killstreak. However, St. Edward’s couldn’t garner any momentum past 118 points, and lost the match with a final score of 118-250.
The second match, Search & Destroy, consists of both teams switching sides to either attack or defend two different bombs on the map. Additionally, each player only has one life and no revives, and the first team to win six rounds wins the match. Playing on map Karachi, Johnny “Vanity” Albano captured the final enemy kill to win the first round. In the following round, Lucas “Ballah” Muccio obtained the first kill, referred to in-game as First Blood, and the team killed all of the enemy’s lives to win. Ballah once again had the First Blood in the third round, and captured point “B” to win their third successive round. St. Edward’s then lost the two following rounds by running out of lives. Then, in the sixth round, Eons successfully killed the last two enemies to seize the victory. They then lost two more additional rounds, tying up both teams at 4-4. They lost the following round and won the next, leading to a game-point round with both teams at 5-5. Team captain Vanity was the last one alive against three enemies, but ultimately couldn’t pull off the win. The Hilltoppers fell to 0-2 against OCU.
In the final playstyle, Control — similar to playstyle Hardpoint — teams must either capture or defend two points, respectively “A” and “B,” on the map without running out of respawns. Each team is given 30 respawns for the match. A team must gain three round wins to win the match. They played the first round defending the two points. Ballah once again drew First Blood, and although OCU captured point “B,” St. Edward’s eliminated all enemy lives and won. Hilltoppers lost the second round by running out of time. In the following round, OCU captured both points and won. In the fourth round, Vanity captured point “B,” and the team later captured point “A” to win the round, tying it up once again at 2-2. Ultimately, the team ran out of time in the final round, causing OCU to win the overall game at 0-3.
After the final match, esports Head Coach Sterling Henderson talked to the team to reaffirm them and also point out what went wrong.
“It’s not a gun skill issue,” Henderson said. “We are not fundamentally playing together as a team.”
Once the team started taking losses halfway through Search & Destroy, the room became eerily quiet as communication seemed to halt. Henderson emphasized playing together, and not splitting off to pursue objectives or enemies alone.
St. Edward’s currently remains undefeated in the College CoD Premier League.
