Long Beach City College lost 3-0 in the grand finals of the NECC Valorant Pacific Frontier playoffs on Monday against Grand Canyon University despite the 50 kill and six first-blood performance that duelist Kasen “Chea” Herroz managed.
“Going into the match, we treat it like any other match and we prepare more to see what the other team does, since it’s a big match like this,” says Brandon Walker, the in-game leader for the Vikings Valorant team.
On the first map Sunset, LBCC was off to a shaky start, losing four out of its first five rounds due to whiffed shots and key gunfight losses due to GCU’s utility use.
The Vikings would lose six rounds in a row, closing the half down 8-4, needing a massive comeback to keep the game close.
Matthew Parsons also known by his in-game name “1w6ts” played as the agent“Chamber” and led LBCC in kills on the map with 24.
In the second half of Sunset, LBCC would slowly close the gap, winning the first three rounds and making the score 8-7,
Even though the Vikings were only down by one, they struggled with late-round utility.
Both teams went back and forth to end the game, but LBCC lost Sunset 13-9 after being unable to hold post-plant strategies and losing the numbers advantage earlier in the round.
Map two Ascent was selected by LBCC, thinking that it should be able to win this map since it was one of its strongest of the season.
The game started with both teams alternating round wins, with Parsons getting crucial two-kill rounds to keep the map tied at 5 heading into the final rounds of the half.
LBCC was able to capitalize in the final two rounds with Kasen Herroz, also known as “Chea”.
using his agent’s ultimate ability “Bladestorm” to get the last two finishing kills in the half to give the Vikings a 7-5 lead heading into the second half.
After the sides were swapped for the second half, LBCC lost the pistol round and anti-eco round, which made the game tied at seven.
Round 15 was a huge swing round for the Vikings, being down in numbers and leaving Brandon Walker, also known as “Thermo” by himself with four other members of the other team still up.
After running time off the clock in the round, Walker was able to line his opponents up, getting two different two-kill sequences.
These sequences helped Walker clutch the one-versus-four situation to give the lead to the Vikings.
Despite Walker’s remarkable round 15, their strategy switch heading into the final rounds wasn’t enough to win as they tried to play fast and force five-versus-five site retakes on the attack side.
LBCC would lose map two 13-9, needing to now reverse-sweep the best-of-five series.
Map three Split was the Vikings’ final chance to come back and keep the series alive.
Herroz got the one-versus-three clutch in the pistol round to start the game strong for the Vikings and continued his dominance in the anti-eco round, with four kills and another round win.
LBCC would start to struggle once GCU’s economy started to build after a small-round win streak of their own to keep the game close.
Whiffed sniper shots and sprays would be a massive caveat for the Vikings in the first half, but they kept the match close as it was 7-5 heading into the second half of the game.
LBCC would start strong once again as they had a numbers advantage early on in some rounds.
Even with the numbers advantage, utility troubles fell upon LBCC, as much of it would be wasted.
The utility mishaps gave the GCU team easy chances to pick off the Vikings, helping it steal rounds and bring the team closer to winning the finals.
With one final round and one last push for LBCC, it was all in the middle, with a rotation to one site that would finish the match.
“We have a lot to work with the team, every single one of these players, I generally believe that we can with it all, but we never had enough training time,” said Coach Giangualano when asked about what he will take away from this entire season now that it’s over.
LBCC esports will resume with more tryouts and potentially more titles to be played in the spring semester with updates from the esports department to come soon.