After a successful and rocky start to the first-ever season of the newly established esports teams, players stayed resilient and made it to the playoffs across the three titles offered.
Keene State’s Rocket League squad advanced to the semifinals in the National Association of Esports and lost Monday night, April 8, to Kettering University. Rocket League ended its season with a 5-4 record.
Both the Overwatch 2 squad and the Super Smash bros. Ultimate team were able to secure their spot in the playoffs last minute but did not advance.
Both squads ended the season with a two and six record.
Head Coach for the esports team Noah Drouin said, “From just for the competition standpoint, having all three teams qualify for playoffs is an outstanding accomplishment for the program and for the student-athletes.”
He continued, “Our Overwatch and Smash Bros teams were in situations where they had to win a couple of games to make it to playoffs, and both of those teams won two out of their last three contests and really clutched up and put it all together when they needed to.”
A lot of work went into getting the program up and running Drouin said, from doing tryouts to then almost immediately going to competitions.
First-year Matthew Bonner, who plays Overwatch 2, said he thought the season went great and the experience of playing it on the collegiate level was a big learning experience for him.
“I can’t really find the words, but it’s it’s been a very cool experience. It’s been something I’ve enjoyed doing immensely,” Bonner said.
He said as someone who at first struggled to find his space at Keene State, esports gave him the opportunity he needed to find friends and get involved on campus. Bonner said he is looking forward to hopefully having the opportunity to play again in the fall.
Looking towards the fall, Drouin said recruiting for the program is already underway, with 70% of the goal being met as of Friday, April 5.
Drouin said recruitment has even gone international, with one student committed from Uruguay.
Also for the fall, esports will be adding Valorant as a new title for students to play in addition to what the program already offers.
Additionally, Drouin is working on expanding the program to add more teams for each title the program offers.
“We had we had to be pretty selective with our first group of tryouts because we wanted to make sure we had the best team possible,” Drouin said.
By creating multiple rosters for the games, it lowers the barrier and makes it more accessible for students who are looking to join the program.
As for improving from this semester, Drouin said he hopes the teams will be able to scrimmage more competitively and against stronger schools more regularly.
“We want to continue pushing our student-athletes to be better,” Drouin said. “I think our student-athletes as they are now are very capable of that. And even internally we’ve noticed a lot of growth within our students in terms of their individual play.”
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
