Here at Macleans College, we have a lot of talented students. Whether it be culturally, academically, or athletically, there are niches throughout the school everyone falls into. Esports is one of those niches. Six students from the Macleans Premier Valorant team travelled all the way to the University of Waikato to compete in the nationwide Valorant competition – and won.
The team list:
- Karanvir Kingra (captain)
- Jay Ye
- Ethan Yang
- Josh Stephens
- Hayden Tong-Ho
- Aditya Kavthekar
A quick recap of Valorant for those interested, it’s a five versus five shooter game in first person. The objective of the game is to either defuse the spike (bomb) as a defender or let it explode as an attacker. The first team to win thirteen rounds wins the game – or if both teams break even, it goes into overtime.
The competition spanned over two days, from Saturday 24th August to Sunday 25th August. On Saturday, the Macleans team played against Hamilton High School and Rangitoto High School, taking home the win in both matches.
However, the second day was much more eventful. The Sunday morning started with an unfortunate loss against Westlake, which brought Macleans to the lower bracket finals – making the next match against Botany Downs Secondary College. After a long match with Botany winning the first game and Macleans winning the second, the team scored the final win with a score of 2-1, bringing them to the Grand Finals against Westlake, again.
The last game was incredibly long and arduous, with forty-six rounds being played.
“We felt under pressure to win 2 straight Best of 3s after dropping to the Lower Bracket, but the boys kept calm and played their games as best as they could.”
– Aditya Kavthekar
The Macleans Premier team ultimately won, taking the title of the first University of Waikato National LAN tournament winners.
A massive congratulations to the entire team, and also not forgetting Miss Xie, Mr Morris, and Mr Konietzny who helped organise the logistics of the team! The team could not have done it without the amazing support from the teachers.
3rd September, 2024
Written by Emma Li, edited by Aaron Huang
Photos provided by the courtesy of Miss Xie
