Merchant beats personal record amid Otterbein victory in Smash

By Balen Allain 

Cedarville’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team won a decisive 2-0 against Otterbein University, with one of the Yellow Jackets breaking a personal record. 

Otterbein is ranked below Cedarville – not by much, but enough to inspire confidence. 

“I have a feeling Eli and Mark will sweep them,” teammate Mathias “kittyclaws” Hahn said before the game. 

“Based off of what we played last semester, I wouldn’t be surprised if I took more than my fair share,” Eli “E_PT” Konuch said. “There’s a possibility they could’ve gotten better too, so who’s to say?” 

Konuch began the first round of the first set with a bang. He fought Otterbein’s best player and took all three of their stocks – lives – while keeping one of his. Konuch put in a risky play, pushing both his opponent and him off the edge, but through impressive air control, he kept his opponent down and got himself back onto the platform. 

In the second round, he took one stock from the opponent before switching out with Mark “MarkyMark” Merchant. 

“I don’t think I’m going to take all their stocks,” Merchant said. “Our strongest players haven’t even played.” 

Merchant put them through the wringer, taking out every one of their remaining stocks and players – a total of eight consecutive stocks taken, three more than his previous record of five. 

In that last round, the opposing player brought Merchant down to his last stock, putting up a valiant effort. It wasn’t enough. 

His reign of terror didn’t end there, either. With the first set going to Cedarville, Merchant started the second set and crushed the first opponent. He lost his remaining two stocks to the next player, but his record of consecutive stocks taken rose to 11. 

Konuch swapped back in for the third round. Fighting to his last stock, he cleaned out Otterbein’s second player and took two of their third player’s stocks, who was playing the character Cloud. 

“That felt fun,” Konuch said. “One of the best players in the world plays Cloud, so he’s not a bad character; he has a giant freight train on a hilt. It’s a question of if I can dodge the train and get in on him.” 

Mathias “kittyclaws” Hahn took Konuch’s place. Unfortunately, he fumbled against Otterbein, and he was brought down to one stock before he took the opponent’s remaining stock from his fight with Konuch. Facing the last player, Hahn took one of his stocks before losing. 

“I was trying to do cool stuff,” Mathias said. “I didn’t do as good because I was trying to aurafarm.” 

With a one-stock advantage over Otterbein, team captain Andrew “A” Adkins took one stock before the enemy tricked him into falling off the platform. He didn’t let that slide, though, because he destroyed Otterbein’s last player with two stocks left. 

“It was a pretty dominant 2-0,” Adkins said. “The second game was close, but it wasn’t really all that close. Tomorrow, we’ve got pretty big games that determine whether we qualify or not, and we’ll definitely be trying our hardest for that.” 

Cedarville plays two matches on Friday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. against Ohio Wesleyan and Lawrence Tech. 

Cedarville Esports normally streams every Tuesday at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. and every Thursday at 7 p.m. on YouTube and Twitch, at Cedarville Esports Team. Old streams are viewable as VODs. 

Balen Allain is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major focusing on Audio and Journalism. He enjoys gaming, writing fiction, and making music, and is working on a book.