Overwatch Year-in-Review 2021-22

By Press release submission

Aug 12, 2022

The St. Ambrose Overwatch Team returned with a vengeance this 2021-2022 season. The newly appointed Coach, alumni Alyssa Duran, brought the intensity culminated from her experience as a team player, captain, and educational assistant to the Overwatch Team.

Representing the SAU Overwatch Team this season was Nikolas Floyd "Lttlen" (Junior), Cameron Schott "Synfaxed", (Senior), Gabe Niziolek "Arc" (Sophomore), Team Manager Cain Bernhardt "AzureRose" (Junior), Captain Michael Mennenga "AgentMM7" (Sophomore), Johnathon Sosnowski "Ace" (Freshman), Gabriel J. Luncsford "KGBPresident" (Freshman), Reilly Keenan "Cendrillon" (Freshman), Isaiah P. Walseman "Heinz" (Freshman), Nathaniel Allen "Od1n" (Freshman), and Alyssa Duran (Coach). Alyssa collaborated with Cain Bernhardt and Michael Mennenga as the respective captain and team manager to intrinsically motivate the team for greatness.

The Overwatch Team boasted incredible accomplishments this year, achieving new heights in competition, community engagement, and professional development. On October 24, 2022 the program hosted the National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) inaugural LAN event, Hometown Series - Davenport, in collaboration with Visit Quad Cities and Rhythm City Casino. The regional event attracted more than 20 colleges in the midwest region to compete in Rocket League, Overwatch, and Super Smash Bros. The Overwatch team was shown the range of power in collegiate esports as they fell 1-3 in pools, a defeat which would light a fire of passion. Members of the team were given professional development opportunities throughout the event by engaging in setting up/tearing down equipment, casting bracket matches, assisting in production, and managing social media posts intermittently.

The Hometown Series event wasn't the only hosted Overwatch opportunity the team engaged in. On Thursday April 7th, Coach Alyssa Duran collaborated with the team, FPS Coach Fernando Preciado-Leal, Community Manager Ben Mallon, Director Chase Neukam, and Augustana Esports Director Joe Loomis to host the inaugural Battle of the River on St. Ambrose Campus. The event was in conjunction with the NECC regular season matches and a live opportunity for Augustana and St. Ambrose fans to watch their favorite teams face off. Parents, siblings, significant others, friends, and professors flocked to the Cosgrove Hall basement to spectate the matches as the teams competed from the esports spaces. Local 4 News caught wind of the event and spread word of the event to the QCA. Additionally, the Quad City Times reported the event's status in their local paper On the coattails of the successful event, Coach Alyssa Duran and Captain Michael Mennenga were featured on Fox 18 Sports to celebrate the event in length. While St. Ambrose fell 2-3 to Augustana in the inaugural event; they would get their revenge a few weeks later during the Spring 2022 NECC playoffs.

Furthering skill sets and pushing community service engagement is a cornerstone of the St. Ambrose Esports Program; one the Overwatch roster embodies! In October, the Overwatch Team volunteered their time helping the local King's Harvest shelter. During their time, they contributed to passing out meals and necessities to the Quad Cities community; everybody eats here! Additionally, members of the team volunteered their expertise to every Honeypot hosted this academic year. Honeypot is a regional fighting games event hosted by SAU Esports which draws in hundreds of participants spanning across the Midwest. Overwatch Team members volunteered to check in players, manage the equipment set-up/tear-down for the event, monitor the security of the play areas, and coordinate matches between the floor and streams.

Kicking off the Fall 2021 season, the team competed in NECC and the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). In the fall, NACE announced their partnership with Collegiate Star League (CSL) to form NACE Star League (NSL); which exhilarated the players hopes for tight competition. The team's NACE season unfortunately ended short as they voted to focus all their efforts on one league as a new roster. The team ended their involvement after the sixth week of competition and finished with a 4-2 set record and a 13-6 map record. The team currently intends to continue NACE competition once again in fall 2022.

The team extinguished the NECC Challenger's Cyan division competition throughout the fall beginning by going undefeated in their four activation matches against Carroll University, Grand View University, Clark University, and Southern Illinois University. The team turned up the intensity throughout the regular season, only falling to the Canadian powerhouse The University of British Columbia - Okanagan Campus (UBCO), which they would reunite with again in the postseason finals. With their eyes on the prize, the Overwatch Team sprinted through Fall postseason quarterfinals and semifinals knocking out Northwestern College and University of California Davis 3-0. Finally, the Bees went toe-to-toe in their rematch against UBCO, who also swept the bracket going into finals. The Fighting Bees came out with an earth shattering performance winning the first 2 games in the best of 7 (Bo7). UBCO clapped back, taking the next 3 maps back-to-back and putting the Fighting Bees on the ropes. Clinging to the sight of victory, St. Ambrose clutched the last two maps ending finals with a 4-3 victory over UBCO. Combining NECC Fall 2021 preseason, regular season, and post season the team ended with a 14-1 match record and a 39-7 map record.

Following the Fall NECC Finals, Freshman Isaiah Walsemen "Heinz" was nominated and won Fall 2021 MVP across the entire Challengers Division. This was tremendous for Heinz as he set his sights as a freshman on constant improvement throughout the season; being met with recognition provided a sense of accomplishment which furthered his motivation to grow. Heinz post-game interview can be found following the fall 2021 finals stream on the NECC channel.

Transitioning into the spring 2022 semester, the Overwatch players shared an agenda to repeat their successes from the previous semester with heavy sights on the NECC championship, then hopefully qualifying for NECC Nationals. Teams were shuffled amongst the divisional structure and St. Ambrose was granted the opportunity to prove themselves amongst more competition such as Clark University, Kansas Wesleyan University, Colorado Mesa University, and SAU rival Augustana University. The Overwatch team shattered the first six weeks only dropping 3 maps; until they met up with Clark Red in week seven, which they then took their first 0-3 defeat all season (and their only 0-3 defeat all season). The ninth and final week of the regular season was the Battle of the River event hosted on St. Ambrose campus against Augustana. Barreling towards a back-to-back championship, the Bees swept Colorado Mesa 3-0 in the quarterfinals. The following semifinals match misted a vengeance as Augustana stood in the way of the Bees chance at a championship, which the Bees swept 3-0 moving on to the Spring conference championship. The Overwatch Team maintained velocity for playoff grand finals against Eagle Esports winning 4-1 in the Bo7 series.

With back-to-back conference championships in hand, the Overwatch Team were seeded #1 in the Challengers division going into NECC nationals. The team won the first two rounds against the Cumberland University Esports and Champlain College Esports (CCE Blue), which they would see again in Grand Finals. The Overwatch Team prepared themselves for the semifinals match against Purdue University as they are well-respected in the space. The Bees were surprised to win the match 4-1 and advance to the national grand finals versus CCE Blue. Wishing to repeat their previous playoff match against CCE would be a tall order as CCE Blue swung the first two maps in their favor. The remainder of the series would go back and forth until it was tied 3-3 going into a game 7; arguably the most stressful moment of these students' collegiate career. CCE clutched out the final map leaving the Bees the national runner-up in their first season as a rebuilt team. The match can be found on the NECC youtube or twitch channels and it was arguably the closest collegiate Overwatch match in the entire conference national championship. Combining NECC Spring 2022 regular season, playoffs, and the nationals bracket the team ended with a 14-3 match record and a 46-16 map record.

Aside from hosting LAN events, the Overwatch Team stretched their legs and tactically traveled to various tournaments throughout the scholastic year. On March 5, 2022 the team competed in the inaugural Iowa Esports State Championship (IESC) hosted by Grand View University following the National Association of Esports Coaches and Directors (NAECAD) conference which took place March 4-5th in Des Moines, Iowa. The team traveled with St. Ambrose Esports program leadership while the coaches and director attended the NAECAD conference to prepare for the state championship after the conference. The team squared up against other Iowa collegiate Overwatch teams such as Grand View University, Coe College, University of Northern Iowa (UNI), Waldorf University, Northwestern College, and Iowa State University. SAU Director Chase Neukam assisted Grand View Director Nate Ragsdell by casting the matches during the entire event. In the end, St. Ambrose took 1st place in the lower division bracket, slaying UNI in the finals and securing prize HyperX headsets for every competitor as well as a custom victory banner.

On April 23rd, a month after the IESC, the Overwatch Team traveled with the Rainbow Six Siege team to Open LAN 2022 hosted by Iowa State Club Esports. The event had significant areas of improvement which hindered the tournament experience for the players and the Overwatch Team left Ames disgruntled with a 5th place record. The team respectfully submitted feedback to the Iowa State Club Team, which resulted in a positive dialogue for growth.

The Overwatch Team finished their cumulative 2021-2022 season (including LAN events) with a 36-11 match record and a 107-39 map record.

Overwatch 2021-2022 Accomplishments