Two Teams and One Individual Esports Player Advance in NJCAAE Championships
April 20, 2024 – The Lorain County Community College Esports continued play in the National Junior College Athletic Association Esports Playoffs on Saturday with a pair of teams sitting just two wins shy of a national title while one individual player needs three more victories. All matches will be streamed live on LCCC's twitch channel: CommodoreEsports.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 1v1 – Best-of-7
Robert Rogers (Lorain, Ohio/Clearview HS) has advanced to the Mario Kart elimination bracket finals after losing a seven-race thriller to SUNY Onondaga in the winner's bracket final. He defeated Marshalltown Community College in the previous round in six races to advance.
In order for Rogers, the No. 11 seed in the tourney, to win LCCC's first NJCAAE title he will need to win his next three matches. First being the elimination bracket final which will be on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 7 p.m. live on Twitch. The opponent for this match is still undecided. Should Rogers win that round, he will square off against SUNY Onondaga again needing two wins to claim a Tier 2 - Contender Series Championship.
Valorant – 5v5 – Best-of-3
The No. 7 seeded Valorant team, fresh off their win against SUNY Jefferson Community College on Thursday, avenged their week one spring season loss to College of DuPage Saturday afternoon with a 2-0 sweep propelling them into the Tier 3 – Open Series semi-final. They won the first game 13-9, then advanced with a 13-5 decisive victory in game two.
Brody Taylor (North Ridgeville, Ohio/North Ridgeville HS) and Justin Kozelka (Munson, Ohio/Ohio Virtual Academy) led the Commodores in the kills department with 50 and 49, respectively. Cadence Buckles (Elyria, Ohio/LCCC Early College) had team-highs in bomb plants (7) as well as bomb defuses (3).
The semi-final will be on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. against another team from College of DuPage. A win there will put them in the Tier 3 – Open Series Championship on Saturday, April 27.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Crew Battle – Best-of-three
One of LCCC's crew battle squads is still alive after advancing to the final four via a forfeit in the second round of the Tier 3 – Open Series Championship.
The LCCC SSBUCB Gold team – made up of Josh Conde (Lorain, Ohio/LCCC Early College), Christopher Gonet (Lorain, Ohio/LCCC Early College), David LeBron Jr. (Lorain, Ohio/Clearview HS), Jason Thomas (Lorain, Ohio/Clearview HS), and Nehemiah Hopkins (Elyria, Ohio/Elyria HS) – will take on Heartland Community College on Friday, April 26, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Heartland defeated LCCC's other crew battle team, LCCC Blue, on Friday evening to advance to the semi-final.
About CommodoreEsports:
LCCC's Esports team competes in the National Junior College Athletic Association Esports (NJCAAE) which is split into three tiers: Tier 1 - Premier Series, Tier 2 - Contender Series, and Tier 3 - Open Series. There is a fall season (September-December) and a spring season (February-April). LCCC has players that compete in Tier 2 and Tier 3. Tier 2 - Contender Series (CS) competition is the mid-level of NJCAAE competition for members with teams made up of eligible students while Tier 3 - Open Series (OS) competition is the open level of NJCAAE competition for members of that collegiate institution. In Tier 3, participants do not have to meet any Student Eligibility requirements.
Both tiers of competition run for seven weeks before the postseason begins.
Currently, LCCC competes in seven gaming titles/competitions:
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a fighting game, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a racing game, that feature characters from the Nintendo gaming universe on the Nintendo Switch. With Super Smash Bros. players can compete in individual competitions in a best-of-five match or in crew battle, an elimination style game in a 3v3 format.
Valorant, a PC first person shooting game where teams of five players compete in a best two-of-three match where the objective is for one team to place and detonate a spike while the other team tries to diffuse it. LCCC also competes in Overwatch 2, another first person shooting game.
Tekken and Street Fighter, both hand-to-hand combat fighting games.
For more information on LCCC Athletics, visit athletics.lorainccc.edu