BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The WVU Tech Super Smash Ultimate team continued their successful fall season with a 2-0 win over Alfred State College Monday night in the Golden Bears esports lab, improving their fall record to 4-2 during their inaugural campaign in the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC).
Tech players Goemon (Elijah Brown, Jr.), Frickroll (Trenton Smith, Jr.), Wolfwarrior (Ian Shaffer, Jr.) and ScytheC (Clayton Wilson, Jr.) went into their week six matchup against the Pioneers with added motivation, as it was likely the final game for volunteer assistant coach Jordan Brown, who is moving on to begin a career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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.
In game one the Golden Bears began with their usual lineup of Wolfwarrior, playing the character Sora, in the leadoff spot. Alfred State sent out a Lucario as their first player, and looked as if they'd scorch the entire WVU Tech lineup with a quick three-stock knockout to jump out to a 9-6 lead. But in stepped co-captain Frickroll with Little Mac, who quickly corrected the situation by getting all three stocks from the upstart Lucario while only losing one, then repeating that effort against their number two, who played as Palutena. This brought the score back to 4-3 in WVU Tech's favor, and Frickroll would face a Duck Hunt in the Pioneers' number three position with one stock remaining. He'd get one of the Duck Hunt stocks before being knocked out, bringing up Goemon with Donkey Kong to anchor with a 3-2 stock lead. The Duck Hunt was fiesty, getting the first stock and another, making it 1-1 before co-captain Goemon closed it out for a skinny 1-0 game win.
For game two, captains Goemon and Frickroll decided to shuffle the lineup and the Golden Bears began the game with Goemon and Donkey Kong leading off. Alfred State also shuffled characters, sending out a Pyra/Mythra to face him. Goemon would get two stocks but eventually fell to the Pyra/Mythra, bringing up ScytheC as King K. Rool for WVU Tech. He wasted no time, stunning the Pioneers' skilled number two player by quickly taking their final stock in under a minute, bringing up a Mario in their number two spot with the score tied 6-6. ScytheC would manage to scrape away a stock, but the Mario was too much, getting three stocks and moving on to WVU Tech's number three player with a 5-3 Alfred State lead. This was not a safe place to be for the Pioneers, as the red-hot Frickroll stepped up fresh off a seven-stock run in game one and anchoring for this game. He kept up the pace, yanking the last two stocks from the Mario while losing one, then moving on to Alfred State's third player as Lucario down 3-2. Frickroll made it look easy, clean sweeping the Lucario for all three stocks without losing another and clinching the match with a 2-0 game two win.
The win moves WVU Tech to 4-2 during the fall season, their first in the ECAC. It also sends volunteer assistant Jordan Brown, brother of co-captain Eli Brown, off with another game in the win column. If you've watched the Golden Bears' streams on Twitch during Super Smash competitions, you've most likely heard him delivering his timely advice in any given situation, from the background. Known as "Joker" during his playing days, he was one of the esports program's founding members and stayed on as volunteer assistant after graduating two years ago. His efforts have been vital in helping to guide the program through a coaching change and its continued growth, working primarily with the Super Smash Brothers and Overwatch teams during the last two seasons.
