The Call of Duty esports team was slated to play in the College CoD Premier League against University of St. Thomas at 6:30 p.m. on March 19, but the opposing team forfeited right when the match was about to begin. Their second match of the night against University of Central Florida’s Knights esports kicked off at 9:08 p.m.
The first playstyle, Hardpoint, was played on map Invasion. Hardpoint consists of teams competing to gain control of an objective area that changes locations around the map, and when uncontested, a team will accumulate one point per second. The Hardpoint area will change places throughout the match. The first team to gather 250 points wins the match. Lucas “Ballah” Muccio captured early to go up 15-24. The Knights extended their lead up to 22-79. David “Eons” Sauseda garnered a double kill to recapture the Hardpoint, which the Knights soon captured again to bring the score to 92-145. Ballah then held the Hardpoint again to break 100 points, and Mauricio “Thresh” Pallares continued to hold after Ballah was killed to get up to 130-165, Knights still leading. Johnny “Vanity” Albano later held to close the gap to 169-200. After the clock ran out, St. Edward’s lost the first match with a final score of 179-201. Ballah topped the leaderboard with 85 points of what’s referred to as “hill time” capturing the Hardpoint.
The second playstyle, 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. The first team to win six rounds wins the match. Played on map Invasion, the Hilltoppers won the first round in an instant with Ballah capturing the final kill. They then lost the following two rounds after running out of lives. In the fourth round, St. Edward’s eliminated all enemy lives to win and even it out at 2-2, but lost the fifth round immediately after. In the sixth round, Eons killed three of the four enemies and defused a planted bomb from the Knights to win the round. They won the next round with Vanity securing the final kill. The following round ignited another victory for St. Edward’s, and Eons secured a 5-kill killstreak. They lost the next round after reaching the time limit without planting any bombs. In their tenth round, the team exercised great communication and pulled off a win. The Search & Destroy round had a final tally of 6-4 for the Hilltoppers.
In the third and final playstyle Control — similar to playstyle Hardpoint — teams must either capture or defend two points, “A” and “B” respectively, 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. This match was also played on map Invasion. While defending the first round, the Hilltoppers won in the final seconds, with Vanity securing the last kill. While attacking the next round, they managed to capture one of the points but lost the round. Subsequently, Ballah secured a five-kill killstreak, and Eons grabbed a triple kill in the final seconds to win the next round. While attacking, Thresh secured point “B,” and Ballah obtained another five-kill killstreak, but the Hilltoppers ultimately lost the round. In the final round, Ballah secured point “B,” but the team lost the round, resulting in a 2-3 record in their third match.
For the tiebreaker rounds, the teams replay the playstyles until one team garners three overall wins. They replayed Hardpoint on map Sub Base. St. Edward’s took an early lead, with Ballah capturing the Hardpoint territory to go up 13-0. After some back and forth between the teams with no capture lasting longer than a few seconds, Ballah later captured again to go up 66-23. The team then communicated flawlessly, calling out enemies and running rotations to continue controlling Hardpoint. Eons captured Hardpoint to further the lead 92-40. Thresh then captured Hardpoint to break 100 points, and also garnered a five-kill killstreak. Eons later held to break 200 points. The final score was 250-162, with Ballah topping the leaderboard with 24 kills and a total of 102 points of ‘hill time’.
Finally, the team replayed Search & Destroy on map Karachi. The Hilltoppers lost the first round but eliminated all enemies in the second round. They then lost the third round. Eons captured a double kill in the next round, leading to a Hilltopper win. They lost the following two rounds. While attacking, Eons planted “B” and the team won the round. Thresh and Ballah were the last alive in the successive round and pulled off a win to tie up the teams at 4-4. The team then quickly won the next round. Ballah gained a five-kill killstreak once again, and the Hilltoppers secured their win in the final match. They won the final round with a 6-4 record and won 3-2 overall against University of Central Florida.
The team is currently ranked third in the Division 1 Southeast sector of the CCL with an 11-1 record. Their games are streamed live on Twitch. Stay updated on their social media.
