Beckley, W.Va. - The WVU Tech esports team's battle royale gamers were in action throughout last week as the team's Apex Legends and Fortnite trios competed in the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC), while their Fortnite duos pair began open play in the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). 

Both game titles, Fortnite and Apex Legends, are what's known as a battle royale style first-person shooter games. Matches cram up to around 100 players or more into a world with a progressively shrinking zone, and the object is to be last one still standing at the end of a round. Points are awarded based on placement and both games award an extra point for each elimination of another team's player. In the ECAC, both Apex Legends and Fortnite matches consist of three rounds of play with around 40-50 teams of three players each. NACE's current Fortnite open series consists of four rounds in a builds format. 

The Golden Bears' are fielding the esports program's first competitive college Apex Legends trio this semester with players Buck (Matthew Buckland, Jr.), Dawceno (Dawson Tharp, Jr.) and Bird (Kathan Kiser, Jr.). After two strong weeks of play, the squad hangs steady at 17th place out of 40 other teams in the overall standings heading into week three.  

The Golden Bears Fortnite team is sending two squads out to compete this spring, with a no-builds trio of DAcoop (Jacob Cooper, Jr.), Dr. Unrushed (Ryan Hayden, Fr.) and TheWacki1 (Keith Karwacki, Fr.) in the ECAC, and their usual builds duo of Contrax (Colson Ford, Soph.) and DAcoop in NACE. 

After one week of play, Tech's ECAC trio (DAcoop, Dr. Unrushed and the TheWacki1) holds 38th place out 63 other teams in their division. Over three rounds, they turned in finishes of 7th, 5th and 10th with 8 total eliminations last week. 

In NACE's builds-duos format, Contrax and DAcoop, looking to qualify for the championship round for the fourth straight time, began their three-week open campaign with finishes of 6th, 39th, 26th and 21st over four rounds with six total eliminations, putting them in a tie with several teams at 36th out of 125 entered teams within their group.  

The WVU Tech Apex Legends trio plays their competitions in the ECAC on Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m., The Fortnite no-builds trio plays in the ECAC on Friday nights at 8:00 and the Fortnite builds duo plays their NACE open competitions on Saturdays at 3:00 pm.