The Humber Esports Rocket League team is currently fighting a tough battle to stay alive in the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) league with 52 teams currently competing.
The tournament is a round robin tournament and the team is part of the East 2 division currently in fifth place with a 2-3 record in the NACE league. They need to win their next two matches to advance towards the playoffs.
While the current state of the team has some room for improvement, it still shows plenty of potential to become a powerful team.
Humber Esports Rocket League team coach Eric Buchyns, who has been a coach for the team since October and has been a part of the team for the past three years, said the team has been growing exponentially.
“They went from just playing as a passion thing together to realizing they can actually teach each other and learn from each other,” he said. “They're all unique in their own way, we’re teaching one person’s beauties to the other.”
While the potential is there for the team to become a powerhouse, they seem to be facing some tough competition as their odds of progressing towards the playoffs dwindle.
The team is currently focused on improving from their last performance, which they had during their last match that they lost against Davenport University Red, to help them secure their next two wins.
Buchyns said the team just really needs to learn to cut back on their mistakes.
“Unlike a lot of other teams we played that were much higher rank-wise whether they played super fast or super mechanically, this one played took their time and punished our mistakes,” he said. “It really came down to we just have to cut down our mistakes, we had a lot of options, we just had to be more precise.”
Humber Esports Rocket League team member Alexander Karikas said the opposing team played a lot slower than expected.
“We reviewed how the other team played beforehand, we thought we knew how they played but they ended up playing slower than I thought,” he said.
Karikas said the team needs to improve on keeping calm and having better composure when they are losing.
“When we’re losing or when an opponent team isn’t playing the way we want them to, we get pretty annoyed by their play style,” he said.
Buchyns said another issue the team seemed to face was consistent accuracy and positioning.
“We had a few almost open nets that we were slightly off by and that could have swung the whole game around,” he said. “We had a lot of good defensive saves but sometimes those saves didn’t have to be made if we were in the right spots, we just have to look back and figure out what to do moving forward.”
Humber Esports Rocket League team member Evan Hutt said they are planning to watch their next opponents' previous matches to come up with a plan.
“We’ll definitely look at some of their replays to see if there’s any patterns, see if we can come up with something to take them down,” he said.
Buchyns hopes the team will pull through with another win or else they may not have much to look forward to anytime soon.
“This is our last week of NACE if we don’t play it right, if they want to keep having fun they better win, if not there’s only so many things to look forward to that we can guarantee,” he said.
The team will play against their next opponents, Western Kentucky University and Grand Valley State University, this coming Monday, however, the date is subject to change.
The team's matches are live every Monday at www.twitch.tv/humberesportsgg.
