UCLA Overwatch Double-Header Roundup
- Sunny Yen
- Jul 24, 2017
- 3 min read
Despite the dazzling play of Brad “raxa” Jiang and solid play all around by the Bruins, the Anteaters (3-1, 7-2 round record) handed the struggling Bruins (1-3, 2-6 round record) their 3rd consecutive series loss in the Collegiate Starleague Overwatch Summer Series.
Facing off against the first scholarship program in the nation for Overwatch, the Anteaters brought their A-game in the first round, relentlessly diving the Bruin defenses on Anubis. UCI Tildaebox started the round off with a quick pick with Widowmaker onto Erick “CAPTAINROLF”’s Ana as UCI stormed the right higher ground. From there, the Anteaters would drop and dive the UCLA lineup, quickly acing them and taking 1st point. Taking their ult charge lead into the 2nd point, UCI would quickly finish off their attack with a clean capture of the 2nd point with UCI’s Lootre’s perfect Sombra ultimate.
Swapping onto attack, raxa locked in his signature Widowmaker. With UCI anticipating another McCree pick, they did not field a WInston on their 1st point defense, allowing raxa to gain high right ground and quickly pick off UCI’s Sombra, Tracer and Mei. Despite being 3 down, UCI LearnTooPlay’s heroics on Reinhardt prevented the UCLA capture, using his ultimate to crowd control 3 UCLA players and allow UCI to hold the point. However, they continued to struggle to deal with raxa and Justin “Justin” Ching’s pocket Ana healing. Raxa quickly picked UCI’s Mei, Tracer and Sombra again, and with a Lucio ultimate from Jordan “DemFiends” Roessle and an Ana ulted Reaper ultimate from Harsha “Harsha” Bandi, UCLA would eliminate all UCI members and capture the 1st point. However, the 2nd point capture proved to be too difficult for the Bruins. Despite raxa and Harsha repeatedly catching out UCI Baerod’s Sombra, strong Tracer play from Tildaebox kept the Bruins from making a successful push. UCLA’s frustrations with communication would come to fruition when Tildaebox shut down raxa mid-McCree ultimate despite DemFiends having Lucio ultimate to end the round.
As the loser’s of round 1, UCLA selected King’s Row as the 2nd map. Starting on attack, The Bruins attempted a hard-dive composition, Putting Harsha on his comfort Genji and raxa on Tracer. CAPTAINROLF switched to D.Va while Leon “PikaChief" Chang, DemFiends and Justin commandeered Winston, Lucio and Ana respectively. The Bruins never seemed to be on the same page, UCI effortlessly countered every push. In desperation, raxa would switch back onto the Widowmaker, only to have UCI, who had correctly picked Winston, pick him off every time he attempted to set up. Failing to get a tick onto the point, UCLA would concede the attack to UCI. UCI locked in the composition that UCLA had previously picked, replacing the Ana with a Zenyatta, and proceeded to demonstrate the differences in the teams. Singling out and picking raxa’s Hanzo, UCI would drop down from their dominant high ground to quickly clean up UCLA and capture the 1st point to win the series 2-0.
UCLA took the victory in the 2nd game of the double-header against the University of Texas Longhorns due to forfeit. This improves the Bruin's record to 2-3 and puts them in sole possession of 3rd place in the group.
GG to UCI Overwatch and Longhorn Gaming. You can watch the full-game on the Esports @UCLA Facebook page here. UCLA plays a rematch double-header next week on Saturday, July 29th and Sunday, July 30th against San Jose State University and the University of California, Riverside. Matches will begin at 12 PM PST and stream information will be forthcoming.
Kommentit