The game of Valorant may be new to the collegiate Esports scene, but that hasn’t stopped the Keyano Huskies from excelling in their opening matches.
A team comprised of Ty Savostianik, Jhudbien Abuda, Marvin Earl Herico Par, Pedro Ortega, Dave Jairus Agullana, Brett Laybolt, KingRome Carlos Baquiran, and Thiago Oliveira, opened the Valorant season with a 4-0 record in their National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) placement matches.
“I was really happy with our team’s performance,” noted Esports head coach Ben Bramly. “We played four other teams that are around the same skill level.
“Being able to go 4-0 showed that we’re hitting above our weight right now and looking solid moving towards the regular season.”
The game, which was released in June 2020, features competitive play of five-on-five teams where the opposing teams battle as certain characters, which provide their own advantages.
One team serves as the attacker and the other as the defender, with the teams tasked to attack or defend certain points on each map they play. Teams play a total of 24 rounds, featuring 12 as attackers and 12 as the defenders, with the first one to reach the majority declared the winner.
While some of the Huskies’ wins have gone smoothly, as evidenced by a 13-0 victory over Murray State, last week’s placement game against University of Alabama-Huntsville went to a triple overtime finish that resulted in a 16-14 win for Keyano.
The Huskies also scored a 13-5 win over Hood College based in Maryland and beat Vermont-based school Champlain College 13-8. Keyano also topped the leaderboard with the greatest differential in rounds won with a 55-27 round record.
Bramly noted that the nature of the game’s new factor has the field open for teams to take the lead and that there was an importance in just mastering their own game to start.
“There’s not too much pre-determined in terms of who the best schools are and things like that,” said Bramly. “There are some schools that you know have solid Esports programs, but this game itself, it’s a little more difficult to know who your team is going up against ahead of time.”
While Bramly praised the efforts of all his players, he singled out Savostianik for complimenting the other players on the team in doing what it took to reach the objective.
Savostianik tallied five planted spikes to four by Abuda, while Abuda and Agullana each tallied 20 kills throughout the perfect 13-0 match.
“We have a few other players who are more of the all-out fraggers, like they get the most kills, but he did a really good job sliding into any sort of support role we needed,” Bramly said.
The Huskies began Valorant league play on Monday, September 20. You can catch the games live on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/keyanoesports
