The York Lions Esports teams have brought home several victories in Collegiate tournaments for League of Legends and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. The two teams managed to secure two victories each, advancing further down the bracket.
The League of Legends team, which is in fourth seed with a record of 4-3, faced the Miami Redhawks who are the best performing team with a record of 7-0. The Redhawks defeated the Lions and advanced to the grand finals.
The teams will fight for third place on October 24 at 1:30 p.m., against the loser of the Kent State University vs Bar esports match.
Meanwhile the Rainbow Six Siege team has won two games in the season opener, improving their standing and moving closer to finals, which will be held in December 2020.
The Ontario Post-Secondary Esports Season Opener
The esports season has officially begun in October as the Ontario Post-Secondary Esports (OPSE) championship began across multiple leagues. The regular season includes four main titles: Hearthstone, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Rocket League.
The OPSE season is one of the biggest undertakings of creating an esports environment within Ontario. Overall, the championship has a prize pool of $24,000 that would be awarded as scholarships. The money is compiled from the entry/participation fee of each esports club.
The York Esports teams are a part of 17 schools that are participating in the competition. The season opener week held the first games of the championship in the week of October 5.
The Lions had a difficult start to the season losing each of their first games in League of Legends, Overwatch, and Hearthstone. However, the Rocket League team brought home a victory with a reverse sweep against Concordia University.
The season seemed to have finished before it had a chance to start, but after falling behind 0-2 the Lions managed to reverse the score.
The team began to build momentum, securing their first match victory bringing it to 1-2, but pressure was on them as a single loss meant the end of their first series. Unfortunately for Concordia, the Lions had a taste of victory and did not let them recover.
After bringing it to 2-2 the crowd began to predict the fate of Concordia as they began to spam a broomstick icon in the online chat forum — a symbol that represents a sweep. The Lions did not give up, and finished strong with a close 3-2 victory. The match was the first and only victory of the season opener for York Esports.
Although a rough start to the week, the pride showed it has what it takes to compete on par with their competition and have a chance to prove themselves in the coming weeks.
