PHS Fall Esports Wrap Up

Portland High School Esports finished a very strong second season of their program at MSU on December 7. Students competed in five titles over the course of the season and made it to the playoffs in four of those games. A little less than half of the teams in our league qualify for the playoffs, so this is quite the accomplishment!

Our Valorant team was the only one that missed the playoffs. Valorant is a five player game and we had quite a bit of turnover throughout the season. Nine different players competed at some point during the season. We did settle down with a core group that included: Gage Larson, Nolan Schneider, Keagan Stair, and Joey Ballard, with the fifth position still rotating a bit. They finished 4-4 and 21st of the 37 teams that competed in Michigan.

The Splatoon 3 team had a pretty steady group of guys playing for us. Arty Hanje, Logan Hanson, Noah Pohl, and Ayden Hoort played in the majority of the matches this season. This team finished 6-2 and 5th of 34 teams in Michigan. This qualified them for the playoff where they made it to the final 8 teams before finally getting eliminated by Novi.

Our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team had two consistent players with Noah Pohl and Logan Hanson. Nolan Schneider, Joey Ballard, and Zachary Roof rotated in through the third spot. They also had a very successful season, finishing 5-3 and 23rd of 107 teams in Michigan. They had a good playoff run and made it to the top 16 teams in the state before finally falling to Novi.

Fortnite: Zone Wars was interesting this season. Keagan Stair played in all of our two player matches, but he seemed to have a different partner every week for most of the season. Ben Endres showed up in the last couple weeks and we found a permanent partner for him. This was the first year of Fortnite and it had some growing pains. There were many lopsided matches and we had three opponents not show up and two rage quit. However, our consistency was rewarded and we finished 6-2 and as the 14th best team out of 150 in the entire Eastern Time Zone!. Keagan and Ben made it to the round of 16 in the playoffs before finally losing to Universal Learning Academy in Westland.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe team had the most success this season! They finished 6-2 and 8th of 78 teams in the state. We had a pretty consistent team of Sora Schneider, Matthew Simon, Ayden Hoort, and Arty Hanje. They made it to the quarterfinals of the playoffs, which qualified them for the live, in person, state tournament held at MSU. Unfortunately they drew the eventual state champions, Saline, in round one. But they gave them a close match and can say they are one of the best 8 teams in the state!

All matches this season were broadcast on the school's YouTube channel which can be found by searching for the Portland High School Esports channel. Replays are available at all times if you want to see what these guys can do.

We'll be starting another season in about a month. The preseason for the spring starts January 27 and lasts about 10 weeks. Any PHS students who are interested in playing are welcome to come out and give it a try!