The Future for the Overwatch Team
WHS’s Competitive Overwatch team has been undefeatable in the winter season, at least until one recent game. So what does the future look like for the WHS eSports team?
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For the majority of the winter season, WHS’s Overwatch team has gone 3-0 against every competitor they’ve faced. That is, until one match against DCG when one of the team’s members had to leave, only to return to a 2-3 score. “Apparently [DCG] is one of the best [teams] in the league,” said senior Sam Graeve, “I feel it’s a step up even though we still lost.”
However, despite the loss, the team’s previous win streak landed them a spot in the state finals tournament on February 21st. Graeve thinks that most of the team’s success stems from great coordination and teamwork, “Kamryn, our tank, he knows what to do most of the time, what comps we’re gonna run, he’s basically our backbone,” he said.
At the start of the year when the WHS eSports team officially started, Coach Palmer said that the club’s motto is “If you want to be heard, you gotta make a statement.” After getting close to state finals in the fall season and placing in them for the winter season, he had high hopes for the Overwatch team. “I hope what it does is create a lot of good PR and… give us more recognition throughout the whole school if we can do well in the finals,” he said, “And I’m hoping we can get it live-streamed in the commons during finals day on the 21st.”
For the players, this is their chance to make a statement and show what they’re capable of, and most of them have never even participated in a tournament of this scale. “Looking into the future, I’ll probably play for a couple of colleges that have reached out to me,” said junior Kamryn Boatright, “It’s just the next step of the journey, we just go from there, who can we go up against who’s better than us, who can we defeat next?”
With state finals day coming up, Palmer hopes that the team’s recent loss is enough to push them to succeed. “I hope that loss hurt… and that it puts something in their brain that they don’t want to feel that ever again,” he said, “I hope that… they’re able to hold on to that feeling that ‘I don’t wanna lose anymore,’ and then keep it going.”