The LBCC esports team made its way to finals on day two of the Grim Cup Valorant tournament, but were eliminated by the eventual winning team, even after pulling off several game winning streaks and clutch plays.
The Grim Cup tournament was held at St. John Bosco High School, and was set up by the Director of Esports at both LBCC and St. John Bosco, Gabe Giangualano.
When asked about the inspiration for the tournament, Giangualano made it clear he wanted the players to experience the feeling of an electrifying crowd found at a traditional sports event.
“When I look at an LBCC esports player now, they are going down a tough road,” said Giangualano. “They are not seeing the fame of scoring a goal, turning around and seeing the Viking[s] crowd just go nuts for them.”
This crowd set-up was provided through the use of the St. John Bosco theater, where computers were set up on either side of the large stage for the audience to watch the players play in person.
The Grim Cup had sponsorship from the gaming world, including 100 Thieves, Envoi, Juvee, Cutting Room, Zotac Gaming, Iconik, MSI, and AWS Game Tech.
“I believe esports is the future of competitive sports for youth that aren’t in traditional athletics,” Nick Stokes, founder of Envoi, said. “I wanted to get involved in that community and that’s why I chose to sponsor the event.”
LBCC had two games on stage at the theater but the first two were held inside the St. John Bosco esports lab, streamed live on Twitch for participant viewing.
The LBCC Valorant team consists of five members, Kasen “Chea” Herroz, Israel “Ghoul” Avila, Calvin “Greenbean” Khim, Brandon “Thermo” Walker, and Elijah “Carbon” Giangualano (the team’s in-game leader) along with the team’s coach, Noah Ferguson.
Prior to the first game, the LBCC players were asked how they felt going into their first games of the day.
“We feel very confident, we are going against high school first and we had a [skrimage] on the stage yesterday,” Walker said.
Before the first game, there was a slight issue with headsets, which caused a delay.
“We provided headsets, but they are not guaranteed to be the best headsets,” Elijah Giangualano said. “But basically, players couldn’t hear the game, couldn’t hear each other, so the headset was useless.”
For the first two games of the first day, LBCC defeated two high schools teams, Paramount and Schurr, with a victory of 13-0 and 13-2, completely dominating in their offstage matchups.
LBCC was only challenged by their last game of the day against Dominguez Hills where they went from a 9-3 lead to a narrow 13-11 win.
In their first match in the quarterfinals, Ascent was chosen as the opening map with LBCC starting on defense.
Their opponent, IVC, was a wildcard team that lost in their third game on day one, but were similarly dominant to LBCC in their first two matches, taking two 13-0 wins early in the day.
The first game was not looking good for LBCC at first, with six straight IVC wins, one of which was flawless, but after a timeout to reorient strategy, LBCC began to turn the tables.
After a four game comeback, followed by one win from IVC, LBCC began to gain momentum by scoring four more wins. The first two were victories, tying up the score at 7-7 and switching LBCC’s defense to offense.
Unfortunately, this was not to last, as IVC took a runaway lead and won the next five games.
LBCC called one more timeout, attempting to perform an updated strategy to flip the cards once again, but to no avail. IVC took the last win they needed to win the first match, 13-7.
Starting on the defense again, round two began with the frigid arctic map of Icebox being chosen. LBCC started off strong with three straight wins, working well as a team and collaborating on their plays. LBCC and IVC then exchanged one win each, bringing the score to 4-1 LBCC.
IVC then made a tremendous comeback, winning the next six games straight, followed by another LBCC timeout that resulted in three wins by LBCC, again followed by two IVC wins.
The score was 9-7 with IVC leading.
IVC went on to win the next four matches, achieving victory and eliminating LBCC from the Grim Cup tournament.
In a post game interview, the team was asked about how they thought the game went.
“We weren’t really expecting much out of that team, it caught us off guard for sure,” coach Ferguson said. “It was the first time we played them, so they weren’t really on our radar.”
When speaking on how they would improve for next year, the players gave some responses.
“For the first game, I just had the jitters mostly, so I just didn’t perform as well,” Avalia said. “I was able to get my footing in the second game, but that’s just about consistency and that’s something I gotta work on.”
“Understanding more that confidence is key,” Herroz said, “If you play with confidence, it will show up in your gameplay.”