In the last two years, Fossil’s eSports teams have grown an immense amount. Starting with just a couple of teams last year, they have increased to six teams, two of which finished 4th and 8th.

Just like most competitive sports, eSports requires a lot of time and effort. 

“We have competitions Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” explains Brian Besel, Fossil Ridge’s eSports coach.

Esports consists of multiple different teams based on the games they compete in; Mario Kart, League of Legends (Varisty and JV), Super Smash Bros (Varisty and JV), and Rocket League.

Usually, eSports teams do not travel for their matches since it is online, which is very convenient for all kinds of different players, however, playoffs are played in Lakewood at Localhost. 

Besel explains, “[Localhost] is just a really awesome space, a really cool environment. You see everybody bring out their different team jerseys that we never get to see… it’s a really cool thing to be around the actual people you’re competing with.”

The coach’s goals for his teams have always been to be competitive, meaning to make it into the playoffs, a goal that was definitely reached this season.

“[Super Smash Bros] kind of had a rough fall season where we got knocked out in the second round in fall and so we had kind of a lackluster finish to our fall season, so to then take that and go to a top four with the same group was really awesome.”

 Besel further explained that it was more than he expected for their second season.

“There were over 190 teams around the state. The top 64 made the bracket. Our varsity squad was ranked 11th going into that bracket with a 7-1 record”

Fossil’s Mario Kart team almost made it into the playoffs, losing in a tiebreaker. However, they still showed amazing progression this season compared to last year.

“[The Mario Kart] bracket is only 32 teams because it’s a smaller League. There’s fewer groups in that and they were eight seed going into that out of 60 teams, so very high rank out of that, which is a lot to say because our team last year didn’t even make the bracket,” Besel stated.

When speaking on students joining eSports, Besel stresses that even if it’s not a game students play all the time and/or excel at, if they have a competitive drive they are encourage to join.

Concluding their amazing second season, eSports is hoping to expand and become more competitive in all games.