Ohio State Overwatch premier team defeated Florida Atlantic in the TESPA split preseason tournament 2-0 Oct. 4. Credit: Lucas Lumbra.
The Ohio State premier Overwatch scarlet team won both of their matches in the TESPA split preseason tournament Sunday, advancing the team into the round of 32.
Each of the team’s wins over its opponents came with a clean 2-0 map sweep –– the first being against Crimson Gaming in the round of 128 and the second victory coming in the round of 64 against Florida Atlantic University.
Lucas Lumbra, a fifth-year in computer information science and analyst for the premier team, said with a roster full of talent and time to learn about one another’s play style, this team has developed by leaps and bounds.
“We’re making improvements very quickly and I knew we would be, everyone playing together really well, we’re really excited, we’re going into matches really confident,” Lumbra said. “We know we are probably a top 30, top 20 program. It’s up to us to prove it to the rest of the country.”
The Buckeyes are not only playing in the TESPA (formerly Texas Esports Association) split preseason tournament, however. They are also competing in another TESPA tournament known as the Overwatch Collegiate Championship Varsity Qualifier 2, which has helped them gain this type of confidence.
Along with tournament play, the team also regularly schedules scrimmages with teams of a similar skill set to get practice against high-leveled teams during their week of scheduled team meetings.
“So I will prioritize other school teams because collegiate Overwatch is a really big community and we like to compete with other schools and get match experience against other schools,” Lumbra said. “That’s basically what we do and it’s really just who’s available or I will message other people who are looking for scrims as well and set something up for the evening.”
Abhishek Goyal, a fourth-year in computer science and engineering and team member, said that the main struggle for their matches on the weekends comes from just trying to get started and remembering everyone’s play style.
“I think every time we have matches on the weekends, the matches we struggle with the most are the starting ones,” Goyal said. “As soon as we got familiar with each other’s play styles again and kinda got used to it, we were back to steam-rolling them again.”
The scarlet team has been dominating teams with a combined mindset from all the players that they need to play each game as if the teams they are going up against are better than the last, Goyal said.
“We haven’t reached that skill level yet where we will be getting a really good match, so we are approaching that skill level but with every team that we’ve fought till now we always had that same mentality that ‘Hey, this team could be better than us and we are going to bring our A-game from round one and show them we’re not something to mess with,’” Goyal said.
For the TESPA tournament, the competition continues to dwindle as the Buckeyes scarlet team is now heading into the round of 32. If the team can win that matchup, it will then play again later that day in the round of 16.
The tournament takes place on Sundays throughout the fall semester. The Buckeyes will have approximately two weeks of time to practice and prepare for the round of 32 in the TESPA split preseason tournament set for Oct. 18.
