MU Esports Begins First Round of GLEC Playoffs as First Seed
Grace Denison
Manchester University’s esports team competed in their first round of the Great Lakes Esports Conference (GLEC) on Saturday, November 6, 2021.
The Super Smash Bros Ultimate team won their first round of playoffs against Huntington University. Coach and director of esports Garrett Schieferstein is excited. “We won the conference championship last spring also undefeated,” he said. “So, we have never dropped a match in our GLEC history, which is great, so I think we are the favorites going in. We are the number one seed.
“I think we should win,” he continued. “I’m very confident in our guys. Our guys are very confident, but they still have to take it match by match. We can’t over-estimate anyone. It’s going to be the top four teams in our conference. So, we gotta give it our all with each team.”
Today they will compete in their second round of playoffs against Trine University at Ohio Northern University; If they win, they will compete the next day for the GLEC trophy.
Smash player Matt Wyatt, known as “Grimbo,” enjoys this game. “I think Smash is kind of unique in the fact that because there’s a lot of kind of iconic characters that people recognize,” he said. “I think if people watch it, they would be kind of enticed.”
Fellow Smash player August Elliott, known as “Augment,” agreed. “All the teams here at Manchester have worked really hard and it would be very cool if we could get more people trying to watch Manchester,” he said. “I would like to see more people watch and cheer us on.”
The Manchester University esports team also had their Overwatch and League of Legends teams compete this past weekend. While neither team won, they still competed hard. “The big thing with Overwatch is that the game of Overwatch, as a program, just started this semester,” said Overwatch Coach Orion Celentano. “This is the first official Overwatch semester that we have actually trained for, which is huge.”
Overwatch senior player Jeremiah Ford is pleased with the results. “Honestly, we did a lot better than we did the first time around,” he said. “We already fought against them our first match. We were just way more organized, we got more kills, we were more efficient with what we did.”
Schieferstein agreed. “We have fun even if we’re not winning,” he said. “Our Overwatch team, you can hear them out there. I don’t think the game is going in their favor at the moment but they’re still yelling and having a great time and enjoying themselves.
“I think that’s what makes our esports team special,” he continued. “Even if we’re one of the best teams in the country or one of the bottom teams in our conference, we still have the same level of enjoyment and passion for the game.”
You can watch Manchester University’s Super Smash Bros team today and possibly Saturday on either the GLEC or Manchester University twitch streams: GLEC_ GG - Twitch ManchesterUniversity - Twitch.