Cedarville Smash team fiercely fights for a 2-1 victory against Adrian College

By Balen Allain

 Cedarville’s Super Smash Bros Ultimate team waged a fierce war Thursday night against Adrian College, whose players put forth a strenuous challenge. After a long back and forth, Cedarville won the night through patience and careful play. 

Super Smash Bros Ultimate, or Smash, is a character-based 2-D fighting game. A full game operates in rounds. The team of four plays against the other team in a series of 1v1s, where each opponent has three lives (or stocks, as they’re called) before someone has to take their place. Once one team runs out of all twelve lives, the round is lost, and the winning team gains a point. The first team to two points wins. 

There are six players on a team, but only four can participate in a round. 

So far, the season has been successful for the Yellowjackets, with a 1-1 record in conference and 1-2 overall. Isaac “ChunkyDavePlayer” Luke was looking forward to the game. 

“We don’t know too much about the team we’re facing, but we’ll go in with confidence, and I know we got good players,” he said. “We’ve had ups and downs, we’ve lost some, we’ve beat some teams by a good bit.” 

He and Mathias “kittyclaws” Hahn agreed on the team’s strengths: consistency, flexibility, and team chemistry. Both also agreed on a weakness. 

“We can never actually lock down a win when we get there,” Hahn said. “We make misplays under pressure. I make misplays under pressure.” 

The first round had Luke immediately stealing the first stock from Adrian’s player, who played the character Terry, and the second soon after. That cost him two of his own before he took the Terry’s third. 

On the second round, Luke took two of the second Adrian player’s stocks before losing his last.  

“He was putting the pressure on,” Luke said. “I tried to stay calm and take what I could.” 

Ryan “TheBigHoss” Gusmano took his place and quickly eliminated the opponent. Onto the third player from Adrian, Gusmano traded stocks with him then lost his two. 

“It was a ton of fun, I’d say,” said Gusmano. “I needed to play more patient. Near that last stock, he totally punished my impatience.” 

Hahn went in against Adrian’s tough player, who proved a tough challenge on the character Donkey Kong. Hahn lost two stocks to him off rip. After taking the Adrian player’s second, he suffered an unfortunate death getting trapped under the main platform. 

Mark “MarkyMark” Merchant sat down as Andrew Adkins, ex-player and now coach, gave him tips on how Adrian’s Donkey Kong played. 

“He does the classic Donkey Kong thing of ‘I stand here, you come at me,’ then he dashes away and comes back for a grab or a hit,” Adkins said. 

Armed with that, Merchant went in and crushed the Donkey Kong’s last stock. 

Both teams down to one player with three stocks, Merchant went in against another tough enemy playing the character Mythra/Pyra. After a tough fight, he lost a stock, then managed to take one from the opponent. On the back foot, they dueled for a few minutes straight. Merchant lost a stock, but Adrian’s player was at high damage, but held on long enough to return significant damage to Merchant, who then lost his last stock after another fierce battle, putting the game 1-0 in favor of Adrain. 

“I did well taking the DK’s last stock,” Merchant said. “I was making a comeback against the Mythra/Pyra, but I felt the pressure, and the online connection was a little bit slow.” 

At the top of round two, Hahn went in against Adrian’s first player. They traded stocks, with Cedarville on the short end of the stick. Hahn lost his second, took theirs, then lost a tough upward climb on high damage. 

“I played very poorly,” he said. “I need to play a lot safer and not hold forward into his stuff cause I let myself get hit by a lot of stuff that did too much to me. I got greedy.” 

Luke took his spot, which made Hahn confident. 

“He [Luke] is going to clown on him,” Hahn said. “I think he’s gonna just sweep this last stock, so he should be able to go through a couple more.” 

Part of Hahn’s prophecy came true, and Luke cleared the last stock. Next, he went against the Mythra/Pyra. He lost a stock, then another. After a short fight, Luke couldn’t keep his last one against the Mythra menace. 

Josiah “Dogi” Hungerford stepped in and thoroughly dismantled the Mythra, quickly taking the first stock, then the second, and then the third. 

“That guy did what every Mythra/Pyra did, which was air dodge all the time. I caught onto that pretty quickly and punished him for that,” Hungerford said. “He liked to jump at me and then wait to press a button, and I capitalized on that by meeting him in the air and swinging first.” 

The Donkey Kong returned to face Hungerford in the next match, and Hungerford tore the first stock from his grasp in less than a minute. The Donkey Kong executed a special grab upon respawning and carried Hungerford into the void. 

“This team keeps doing unique things,” Luke said. 

In retaliation, Hungerford stripped another stock from him, lost his own second, then finished the Donkey Kong. On one stock left, Hungerford took the first stock from Adrian’s last player before they took his last. 

Merchant returned to close the round, and close it he did. 

Match point, 1-1. The game hit the hour fifteen mark. Hungerford returned to fight the Mythra/Pyra again. He held out his upper hand and took the Mythra’s first spot. They traded stocks, then Hungerford won the matchup. 

On to Donkey Kong, Hungerford took down two of his stocks before he lost by attrition. Merchant took his place, with Cedarville still two stocks ahead. The Donkey Kong continued his strong resistance, taking two stocks from Merchant before finally losing at nearly 200% damage taken. Merchant lost his stock to Adrian’s third player. 

“This Terry that Mathias is about to face is the really crucial battle,” Merchant said. “If Mathias takes that, we can easily deal with the Kirby.” 

Hahn stepped in. Unfortunately, he lost a stock to the Terry, then clutched up with taking two stocks in quick succession from the Terry. The Terry fought him to his last stock, and there commenced a long, drawn out battle of a few minutes. They stayed neck and neck in damage, and the team eagerly, anxiously watched Hahn battle to a bitter end, climbing his way back from a near defeat and at last demolishing the Terry. 

“I just knew what he wanted to get, and I knew there’s something I wanted to get, so I just did everything super safe,” he said, “because eventually he was going to screw up and overcommit to a kill move.” 

Onto the Kirby, Mathias took his first stock and lost his own. Gusmano, the last player, had a one-stock advantage, and he played the character Kirby too. Adrian’s Kirby brought him down to two stocks, but Gusmano exacted vengeance and put Adrian College on their final stock of the night. 

“I found myself fishing for something I shouldn’t have, so I stuck to my game plan and slowed things down quite a bit near the end to just chip away, chip away, and when I saw the stock, I took it,” Gusmano said. 

Adkins was satisfied and proud of the team. 

“They clutched when they needed to, and that was awesome,” he said. “I feel like if we adapt a little harder and a little earlier, it wouldn’t have been as close as a nail-biter as it was – but, we did it.” 

Cedarville Esports streams on YouTube and Twitch, under the same name. Rocket League typically plays on Tuesdays at 7 p.m.; Smash on Thursday at 7 p.m.; Marvel Rivals on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Old streams are viewable as VODs. 

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