New season underway for Comets eSports
Smash Bros., Overwatch and Valorant primed for Spring
Western Iowa Tech's spring eSports season is underway as one Comets squad held its first official competition while two others are concluding their preseasons this month.
WIT's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team opened the regular season with a competitive showing on Tuesday evening. The Overwatch 2 team swept a fellow NJCAAE school in preseason action on Wednesday night. Thursday marked the start of the Valorant season though the Comets begin the spring campaign with their bye week and will debut next Thursday.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
The Comets Smash team opened with a regular-season loss but head coach Cale Conner saw more than enough positives against the tough East division.
"We played extremely well," Conner said. "They've really been grinding in the offseason that we had."
WIT competed in the West last semester and now, in Conner's estimation, will face elevated opponents this season.
"The switch from West to East ... the competition was crazy," he said. "(We) still did very well. It was always up to one stock (life) for the most part."
Dawson Zahnley, Jayden Axtell, Asher Johnson and Robert Stickney represented WIT Tuesday night.
"They've been grinding, they've been really at it and getting significantly better," Conner said. "From the start of the season last season, you could tell it wasn't at that top level. But now just by their movement and how confident they are going into these fights, it's a significant change that gets me excited."
Super Smash Bros. will take place at 5 p.m. every Tuesday. Competition will be streamed on the Comets' Twitch page.
Overwatch 2
The Comets beat Jefferston State CC (Birmingham, Alabama) 3-0 in Wednesday's best-of-five.
"Honestly it was kind of wicked, I have not seen them play like that in a very long time, so it was good to see," Conner said.
Each round was a 2-0 victory for WIT.
While Conner said you can't predict how the regular season will go based off one preseason match, he was very optimistic about the team of Nicolas Varvais, Connor Miltenberger, Kage Knudsen, Emmanuel Reyes, Maria Mendoza-Peña and Burke Priest.
"It was great to see," Conner said. "Teamwork wise, I had never seen it before. It was just a differnet type of flow, the synergy was just perfect.
"Maybe they are a little ahead of schedule, they're playing fantastic. I'm excited to see it and I want to see it in the regular season. I think they can make nationals and I think they can do very well."
The Comets regular season for Overwatch 2 begins at 5:30 p.m. on February 21. Most matches are streamed on the Comets' Twitch page.
Valorant
WIT's Valorant team opened its spring season on a bye week and will open the regular season at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 15 against South Puget Sound Community College (Olympia, Washington).
Despite the delay, rust won't be a factor for Davy Tran, Chris Rice, Pablo Delatorre and Knudsen.
"We scrim (scrimmage) a significant amount. It's practically daily," Conner said. "A lot of them take it how it should be. Scrims aren't for winning, it's for learning. Winning those scrims, obviously that feels good. Usually it's against pro teams or really good collegiate teams."
The preseason displays has kept Conner confident.
"I think we'll make nationals again."