BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The WVU Tech Super Smash Ultimate team lost their week three matchup with Bethel University by a score of 2-0 Tuesday night in the Golden Bears esports lab. Tech players Goemon (Elijah Brown, Jr.), Frickroll (Trenton Smith, Jr.), Wolfwarrior (Ian Shaffer, Jr.) and ScytheC (Clayton Wilson, Jr.) entered their latest East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) matchup having won their last two in a row, but the Pilots were ready for the hot-streaking Golden Bears. 

In the ECAC, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate is played in a three-man crew battle format, with each team trying to be the first to knock out all the other team's players. Each player in the lineup enters with three stocks, or lives, and competes until they're knocked out, or they knock out all the competition's players. In other words, each team starts a match with 9 stocks and the first to run out loses. The two teams then play a best-of-three game series.  

Wolfwarrior, playing as Sora, lead off for the Golden Bears in game one, while Bethel lead off with the classic Nintendo character Mario. Bethel's Mario went to work fast, using a combo of fireball and lots of shield to quickly get all three stocks and a 9-6 lead. Frickroll then stepped in for the Golden Bears with the trusty character choice of Little Mac. He'd encounter the same issues with the Mario, who continued to play heavily off the shield and fireball. As WVU Tech began to catch onto and counter the tactic, Frickroll managed to get a stock but ultimately fell, bringing up Goemon with Donkey Kong facing a daunting 8-3 stock deficit. Red-hot after his performance the previous week against Southern Connecticut State, Goemon dispatched the rampaging Mario's two remaining stocks while losing one, making the score 6-2 as Bethel's number two player stepped in with the character Kazuya. The Kazuya proved to be just as good as the Mario, who quickly took the last two stocks to secure a 6-0 Pilots game one win.  

In game two, WVU Tech sent out ScytheC with King K-Rool, who would take on the Kazuya as the Pilots' leadoff. The Kazuya took all three stocks and got to Frickroll in WVU Tech's number two spot with a 9-6 stock lead. Frickroll switched to Pichu for a better character matchup and managed to take a stock, but the Kazuya was able to get all three to make the score 8-3 as Goemon again stepped in as D.K. with a massive mountain to climb. It was merely a hill for WVU Tech's Donkey Kong, as he quickly took the last two stocks from the Kazuya, bringing the score to 6-3 as Bethel brought in their number two player using the character Robin. Goemon would get past the Robin while only losing one stock to bring the game to 3-2, and suddenly WVU Tech had a chance. Bethel would be forced to bring in their number three player, the dominant Mario from game one, to try and close it out. In a near repeat of the previous week's epic heroics, Goemon's D.K. went blow for blow with the Pilots' Mario, bringing the game to 1-1 and nearly getting the win before the Mario edged out a narrow 1-0 game two win, and 2-0 match win for Bethel University.  

WVU Tech Super Smash play again Monday, October 16 at 8:00 p.m., opponent TBD. The match will be streamed live on Twitch. (WVUTechGoldenBears).