Wayne State College Call of Duty team took on the nation’s best this past weekend, only to fall short in the end. Winning three teams before falling in the double elimination bracket, WSC esports needed a single win to clinch their spot in next week’s tournament.
Wildcat Call of Duty competed in the College Call of Duty League (CCL) and recently wrapped up their season with a 13 – 7 record, finishing top 12 in their bracket. WSC CoD needed top eight for a chance to play for the gold medal, but in their final match against The Indiana Hoosiers, the Wildcats fell short.
Starting the weekend, Wayne took a clean 3 – 0 victory over the Rockford Regents, with a dominant 250 – 66 hardpoint victory on Exposure, followed by back to back 6 – 1 victories on both Overload and Search and Destroy (SnD).
Player Chase “Squirt” Raber, led the team with the most first bloods in SnD and Device Deposits in Overload.
Raber said, “The mindset this weekend for everyone was to just do your 25%. It’s a team game but focus on your 25% first.”
Coach Mitch “MKiAM” Keady openly admitted to wanting more for the program.
“I want more space, you know? I wanna see this program grow and knock down walls,” Keady said. “There are too many people and too many practices all scheduled at the same time, plus we have 12 PC’s just sitting in storage, that’s 12 more players that could be involved at any time.”
The second game of the weekend Wildcat Call of Duty lost after a brutal 3-1 matchup on Scar and Blackheart, some of the worst performing maps for the Wildcat roster.
After down 2-0, WSC tried to claw their way back into the game with a 6 – 3 Overload to win map 3, and even carried that momentum into map four on Exposure Hardpoint, only to lose 250-199.
“That was a very win-able series,” said Micheal “BigMike” Costlow. “If we had been playing our best that series we could have won, but we lost some big impact frags [eliminations] and it cost us the game multiple times over.”
WSC CoD ended their day on Friday with a 3 – 0 stomp over Ball State, with a 250 – 62 Hardpoint, 6 – 0 Search and Destroy and finally a 7 – 0 nail in the coffin to send the Wildcats forward to Saturday.
BigMike said, “This one might have been the easiest game of the weekend, being in losers now we can try to make a real run to top eight.”
The Wildcats opened up on Saturday with a Hardpoint victory on Mayville State, winning 250 – 86.
Aiden “Blitz” Veik finished that map with a KDR of 31/20, with Jackson “Vexxprr” Peabody wrapping up that map 30/18. WSC struggled a bit in map two, with a 6 – 4 victory, but cleaned it up in Overload with a quick 8 – 0 to send WSC one step away from nationals.
Wayne State College Call of Duty lost in the final minutes of the tournament, with a 3-0 loss against the Indiana Hoosiers, as a result, the winning team is the team required to submit statistics, but the Hoosiers failed to do so, and the Wildcat Call of Duty team refused to comment and are looking forward to next season.
