MARION, Ind. - The IWU Wildcats Valorant team won the West-Central Conference on Monday night with a 3-2 win over Western Colorado University.
The Wildcats were seeded 2nd, while the Mountaineers were seeded 5th, meaning the Wildcats got the first ban and the first map pick. With the new rotation, the Wildcats decided to pick Fracture, a map that hasn't seen competitive play since the 25-26 school year. While their defense was strong, the Wildcats struggled on offense and ultimately lost their map pick, 13-9. However, on the Mountaineers' pick, Pearl, the Wildcats got revenge in a huge way, taking the map 13-3 and pulling all of the momentum back. Senior
Evan Stoller, "PokevanXD", led the Wildcats with a 342 average combat score on Pearl and dominated most of the stat lines in this series.
However, it was the freshmen phenoms,
Ryan Slain,"Rhino", and
Gunnar Wegg, "ayric", that built a ton of momentum on map #3, Bind, which ultimately set the foundation for the Wildcats to win the map in overtime. With a 2-1 lead, the momentum was solidly in IWU's favor, but they were staring down another WCU map pick. Lotus started strong again for the Wildcats, before WCU adjusted and made a big comeback. Despite their efforts, the Wildcats couldn't hold on.
Finally, it all came down to map #5, Haven. The Wildcats had not lost Haven all season and recently took it off of #3 University of St. Mary's in last week's semifinal. IWU started off on defense, which is traditionally their weaker side, but they came out with a 7-5 lead after some clutches by Slain and
Nick Everett, "oziie". Finally, on their attack, they forced match point at 12-10. While IWU had played extremely well on attack so far, some early picks led to them dropping the round. Now, they needed to win this final round or WCU would force overtime with a ton of momentum. And the Wildcats took the bull by the horns, grabbing 3 early picks and closing out the last two players on C site to win the conference tournament!
Stoller was named the tournament MVP, after leading the tournament in eliminations, total score and KDA. In addition, Stoller combined with Everett to reach just over 200 eliminations in the championship match!
En Milbourn, "DIce", was the team captain for this year. He was able to get an interview on the Wildcats' stream about what's important as you build an esports career. "Your relationship with Christ is just as important, well really more important, as your gameplay. If you have that foundation, everything else will follow," said Milbourn.
Head Coach
Ryan Plummer also chimed in after the game, "I'm really proud of this team. Tonight was the biggest piece of adversity we've faced all Spring. We overcame personal and team struggles throughout the night and came out on top. That's what championship teams are made of!"
The Wildcats will be heading the NECC Div VIII National Championship Tournament next week. While they don't know their opponent or the time of the game, the first round will be held on Monday, April 20th. The Wildcats will officially be the #1 seed for nationals after tonight's win because of how the Nationals Point System works in the NECC.
All of the Nationals games will be streamed to urbanedgenetwork.net so make sure to follow along with all the action!
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