On the evening of Nov. 15, both Overwatch teams, Black and Orange, played their respective playoffs. Returning champions of the GPAC in February, the Doane Overwatch Black team has been ruling the conference with seven wins, and no losses; the first-year students on the Doane Orange Team have also been ruling the conference with six wins and one loss. Aaron Blackman, the director of eSports, gave input on how the Doane team has won against all of the closest schools in our conference, such as Midland University, Concordia University, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kansas State University, and others.
Also, he emphasizes the growth the team has had during this past year, with the increment of first-year students while being able to have two Overwatch teams for this Fall 2024 term, with both titular and alternate members in both the Black and Orange teams.
“They’ve been working really hard for the whole semester, and I’m excited to see how they do. I’m proud of their work ethic, and they’ve been getting good at communicating with one another during the match. The access to some information and passing it between them in the middle of the match while filtering the others is a skill in which they have grown a lot like that.”, Aaron Blackman said.
In representation of the Overwatch teams is junior Jamey Rhea, founder and leader of the first Overwatch team here at Doane, who was also involved in the hiring process with Aaron Blackman alongside the eSports department starting at Doane last year in Fall 2023. Concurring the first apparition of the Overwatch team last year, one of the biggest problems was finding enough people to commit to playing competitively.
The few people who were interested either couldn’t commit to practicing due to a busy schedule or didn’t have the drive enough to play seriously. However, these guys did not give up and found enough players in their chairs, and everything started to run smoothly. During their first season, they made it to the playoffs and were beaten by Tarleton State University. After all this time and effort, Rhea stated his feelings and thoughts about his team and the eSports.
“This team is an amazing outlet for me. I’ve loved playing Overwatch for a long time. This is far from my first team, but it’s the team that I feel the closest to,” Rhea said.
“In terms of roles, I set up our scrimmages and manage the in-game lobbies. I play tank, so my main role is to make space for our team to operate (which is kinda what I’ve done in real life too). Many times I’m the playmaker, but everyone pulls their weight. Davis helps us with compositions and grand strategy, Mady keeps us centered and grounded, and Raf/Sam have such an amazing synergy with each other. There’s a reason that we’re still undefeated this season. we are able to comfortably adapt to change,” Rhea said.
Thanks to the performance of this new season, both Blackman and Rhea can agree that the Overwatch team has made tremendous growth compared to last year up to now.
