The OU Esports club brings home some Ws
Over thirty teams from across the Southern United States competed in the Southern Esports Invitational inaugural tournament this year. Southern Esports Invitational stated that their goal was “to embolden the Southern US’ presence in esports…” according to their Twitter.
To do so, they’d need to showcase the esports and gaming talent here in the south.
The event was sponsored by HyperX, a branch that designs innovative tech for all gamers. The grand prizes included One Pulsefire Pro FPS and 100x Twitch Student Bits per teammate.
The OU Esports teams did exceptional in the tournament, with the Overwatch team taking home first place, and the others placing in the Top Ten of each game.
“I thought we made a great showing. The flexibility and in-game decision-making were better than we’ve ever done.” Overwatch Varsity Coach Joshua “Thumper” Riesenberg commented.
Jon “RadPanda” Hudson, Competitive Director for the OU Esports Club was thrilled with the performance of the organization as a whole.
”Across our six teams competing, all of them placed top 10 in their respective tournaments, with our Overwatch team taking first place, and our Rainbow Six team placing third as well. I'm super proud of our coaches for getting their teams ready and handling the logistics of the event, and really happy with how all of our teams played! Big shoutout to our Rainbow Six, Valorant, and Call of Duty teams, who are all new this semester, so this was their first major event that they got to play in. I think we walked away feeling confident with our teams' performance, and we're super excited about the competitions that are upcoming."
RadPanda also commented that the Southern Esports Invitational team “Did an amazing job putting everything together.”
Another exciting thing that happened during the tournament was our very own Sawyer “Zepheos” Frakes getting a triple kill on map one playing Valorant. Check the video to see the amazing play!
Check out this EXPLOSIVE play by Quaide to win in overtime of Game 1! pic.twitter.com/4aadAFfONE
— The OU Esports Club (@OUEsports) October 31, 2020
“I was really trying to get into the minds of USF and make a play that would catch them off guard. When that first player swung out, honestly I was in my head and didn’t have a fast reaction but I snapped out of it and shut down their rotate,” said Frakes.
Valorant is a game with no respawns and a focus on accuracy, so getting so many kills all at once is a big deal.
The event was a huge success for the OU Esports club and we cannot wait to come back next year with even more teams, games and prizes!
