About two weeks ago, the Mount St. Mary’s Esports team saw its opponents face-to-face for the first time. And it was on the biggest stage in the nascent program’s history: the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championships in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
For three years, the Mount had played all of its matches inside the tricked out space of a renovated Purcell Hall, replete with dozens of high-tech gaming computers. But with pandemic restrictions gone and an actual conference title to compete for, the Mountaineers hit the road for their first local area network (LAN) party.
“Being able to actually go somewhere, sit down and see your opponent, the feeling of regular sports sinks in, and it’s so much more serious,” senior Dmitri Milholland said.
But Milholland and his teammates on the school’s Overwatch squad were not fazed by their new surroundings. In fact, they didn’t lose all weekend.
The Mount swept its way to the MAAC title in Overwatch 2, claiming the conference’s top prize in its first year in the league. The win gives the Mountaineers a trip to the national-level Collegiate Esports Commissioners Cup, which will be held in Texas in May.
“We’re there for a week, so I think we’re going to have a lot of fun. It’ll be another cool experience,” sophomore Brady Klodaski said. “Plus, I’ve never been to Texas.”
Klodaski was the league’s MVP, and he paced the Mount to a win over three-time defending conference champion Marist in the final. At the tournament, the Mount did not lose a single map of the first-person shooter game, which pits teams in a five-on-five, best-of-five format.
Three of the team members — Milholland, senior Pratosh Brahmbhatt and junior Jack Hohl — have been on the Mount’s Overwatch team since the school began sponsoring an Esports program in 2020. They are now joined by Klodaski and senior Darien Hundley, who transferred into the Mount last fall.
“They’ve both been great additions to the team, and since me, Dmitri and Jack already have that chemistry … we’re all just buds now,” Brahmbhatt said.
Joining Klodaski and Hundley as more recent additions was coach Michael Hansen. The 24-year-old came to the Mount from Nichols College in Massachusetts last summer seeking a more robust Esports program he could help lead.
Hansen was impressed by the resources the school was willing to put in to expand Esports at the university. It helped he already knew program director Russ Hamer from an NBA 2K league and interactions on Discord, a chat app frequently used by gamers for communication.
“It was a wild connection,” Hansen said.
Hamer founded the Esports program three years ago, which quickly expanded to include a minor. He led every team until Hansen came, when he passed off coaching duties of the varsity Overwatch and Rocket League squads to the latter.
And the Overwatch squad found immediate success. Hansen said he didn’t have to do much in-game coaching; rather, he primarily managed the team’s mentality, making sure no one fell out of love with the game and kept up a good life balance.
“At a certain point in the game, everyone has the level of mechanics to get to the top level,” he said. “It’s just, how are you going to prepare yourself.”
The club quickly found motivation with the announcement and release of Overwatch 2 last October. Most of the team had gotten burnt out on the original Overwatch, which released in 2016, due to overplay.
But the new game allowed for a refresh, and the squad found it much easier to return to and more fun. The game also changed from six-on-six to five-on-five, allowing for them to develop new strategies.
“Feels better, plays better, and now we have people in the roles they want to play,” Hundley said.
That smooth transition meant more relaxed practices, and it translated to competitive gameplay, too. The Mount went unbeaten in MAAC play to earn the top seed entering the conference tournament, taking hold of one of the country’s more robust college Esports leagues.
It resulted in that trip to Atlantic City in which they saw their opponents in front of them for the first time. They rolled to victory there and now have a chance to bring the program to national heights.
“Going from the team we had our first year, where we weren’t that great, to the team we have now, winning an actual tournament, is pretty crazy to me,” Hohl said. “I didn’t think we were going to do that as a pretty young program like we are.”