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UCLA Overwatch Premiere Defeated by UCR 0-2

Sunny Yen
Jul 16, 2017
3 min read

Despite putting up a much stronger fight with emergency substitute Daphne "daphdawg" Jin, the Bruins found themselves face-to-face with a much better-coordinated team in Team Cinnamon.

Assigned Hanamura, the Bruins would start the round on defense with a standard 2-2-2 composition with Soldier, Tracer, Winston, D.Va, Ana and Lucio. Setting up at the gate to the 1st point, Harsha’s Tracer would get picked off by a scatter from Hanzo, allowing UCR to full-dive the backline in the absence of a UCLA diver. UCR would cap the 1st point in 1:30. On 2nd however, both Harsha’s Tracer and Kabosui’s 76 were drawn away from the team in an attempt to kill the Highlander’s Genji, allowing the heavy dive comp from UCR to collapse onto the remaining members of the team and cap the 2nd point in 3 minutes total. On attack, Harsha would switch onto the Pharah with daphdawg running the PharMercy combination. With the pressure from Harsha, UCLA would quickly ace UCR and capture the 1st point in 3 minutes. Pushing aggressively onto the 2nd point, Harsha would trade his life and ultimate for quick picks onto UCR’s 76 and Ana. Kabosui and the rest of the team would quickly swoop in, cleaning up the rest of the Highlanders for a 4:49 minute cap time and tying up the round.

The 3rd and final round would place the Bruins on attack, with UCR trying their Torbjörn strategy again. Harsha would quickly dismantle their team once more, allowing UCLA to cap the 1st point quickly. However, with time running out on the 2nd point, UCR would ultimately stall the Bruins out. The Bruins would swap up their defense composition, running a triple tank combination with Kabosui on Soldier: 76, Harsha on D.Va and PikaChief on Reinhardt. CAPTAINROLF’s Ana and daphdawg’s Lucio would complete the 3-1-2 composition. UCR would lose the first fight when their attempt to dive the healers were met by all 3 tanks successfully peeling with their abundance of shields. However, UCR’s Hanzo pick off 4 Bruins to allow UCR to capture the first point. Having built up their ultimate charges, UCR would charge the 2nd point, quickly picking off several more UCLA players before a Hanzo ultimate down one of the spawn corridors would prevent UCLA from contesting the 2nd point to lose the set 2-1.

UCLA chose to play the 2nd round on King’s Row, historically their best map during the 2016-2017 season. Starting on defense again, the Bruins would lock in their previous 2-2-2 composition with Soldier: 76, Tracer, D.Va, Winston, Lucio, and Ana. Despite quick picks from Harsha and Sehee, UCR once again showed off their superior team coordination, diving onto UCLA’s healers and allowing the Highlanders to cap the 1st point in 1:30 minutes. UCR would ride their ultimate advantage into streets only to be stopped by patient fighting from UCLA, negating their ultimate charges with strong tank and peeling play as well as aggressive flanking from Harsha and consistent damage from Kabosui. Despite this, UCR would eventually begin winning fights as they adapted to the Bruins’ strategies, eventually grinding out a 3-point capture with their team coordination with 3 minutes remaining.

UCLA would attempt a hard-dive composition on their attack, swapping to Genji, Tracer, Winston, D.Va, Ana, and Zenyatta. Despite being repelled by UCR in the 1st fight, Harsha would manage a five thousand damage Genji ultimate in the 2nd, allowing the Bruins to capture the 1st point. Moving onto the street portion of the map, UCR would wear down the UCLA offense, winning fights and repeatedly forcing the Bruins back. UCLA would remain persistent, eventually grinding out the 2nd point capture but only with 1 minute remaining. The time-crunch would prove to be insurmountable, and the Bruins would only manage to make it halfway to the 3rd point before getting aced on the payload, losing the round to drop the set 0-2.

UCLA had hoped to take the victory against the last place University of California, Riverside Highlanders, who had already dropped sets to San Jose State and University of California, Irvine. The loss puts UCLA in a tie with the Highlanders, placing them firmly at the bottom of their group with 1-2 records.

The Bruins’ schedule will not get easier, as they face the undefeated University of California, Irvine, on July 22nd at 12 PM PST. Stay tuned for information and other news.