Marvel Rivals Yellow Jackets give Kennesaw State a run for their money in loss

By Balen Allain

Cedarville’s Marvel Rivals Esports team lost an incredibly even 3-1 fight against Kennesaw State University on Thursday.

Last week, the Yellow Jackets faced a handy defeat at the keyboards of Winthrop University. Nonetheless, spirits were high.

“We’re going to have a good time,” Jared “Sphinx” Toyer said before the match. “They have a lot of players that are similarly ranked to our team, so it’ll be a good game.”

Cooper “Disciple_91” Brackney concurred. Cedarville and Kennesaw were roughly the same team at face value.

“We beat the same teams that they did, and we lost to the same ones,” he said.

At the start of Domination, the teams clashed for a minute trying to claim initial control of the plate. Cedarville won out and pushed the zone to 50%, only to lose it to Kennesaw again. The Yellow Jackets didn’t let that stand and reclaimed the zone, holding it consistently through to claim the first point.

The second round mirrored the first, but Kennesaw retook before Cedarville could win. When overtime started, Cedarville lost an assault on the zone, and the team couldn’t get back together in time.

In an uncommon third round of Domination, the opening battle lasted nearly two minutes. Kennesaw edged out a lead and barely held off Cedarville for 80% capture progress, but the Jackets took their place until their own halfway point. Kennesaw blazed a path to the end and held through overtime.

Logan “H3RSCH” Herschberger explained that they were playing a pretty safe strategy, but small mistakes at the wrong moments can hurt their chances.

“There’s just a couple mistakes here and there,” he said. “I think we can definitely take fights. We showed we took fights.”

Down 1-0 to Kennesaw, the team was keeping up those spirits. The even matchup made for a more interesting fight to them than a hard loss or easy win. Alan “RogueWSargeant” Alexis

“Judging off of the first game, I have to feel like it could go either way,” he said. “It’s actually very fun. I like the challenge: the strategy part of it, trying to keep track of everyone’s abilities.”

True to his word, Convoy opened in Cedarville’s favor. With Cedarville playing the role of escort to the payload, they fended off Kennesaw. In two minutes, they nearly finished the second third.

A minute later they took the payload back from Kennesaw and sped to the end. At the last thirty seconds, Kennesaw took control of the escort and forced the game into overtime, stalling Cedarville’s progress at about 85%.

Kennesaw had to match Cedarville’s dominance, and they did. They kept a high timer going into the final third and outdid Cedarville, furthering their lead at 2-0.

Alexis had the same attitude toward the upcoming Convergence match. They could win, they could lose.

“I’m still trying to think of what happened,” he said. “Maybe some sort of miscommunication.”

Team captain Ben “Fysx” Jones was trying to understand that too.

“I need to think about how we’re losing and try to fix it,” he said. “I think they do learn quick.”

Technical difficulties stopped Convergence from going forward. A sweeping outage yesterday brought down Microsoft’s cloud services, rendering Outlook useless – the email service Herschberger’s planned substitute uses to log into the computer, so Herschberger stayed in the game.

Convergence, again, started well for Cedarville. They captured the first point easily and escorted the payload about 35% of the way, but Kennesaw halted them for a couple minutes. Cedarville eventually chased them off and forged ahead, reaching about 70% before Kennesaw assaulted and reduced their progress some. In overtime, the Yellow Jackets recaptured and sped the payload to the end.

In a pattern break, Kennesaw seriously struggled to even capture the payload at the start. Cedarville hounded them for a while, eating their timer until they could claim a longer hold over it.

Once Kennesaw pushed past halfway, they seemed to reclaim their stride. Cedarville was only able to hold the payload and force it back at close to Kennesaw’s victory – now they just had to keep it for a minute and overtime.

Kennesaw threw an onslaught at the Jackets, but it wasn’t enough. Cedarville claimed Convergence, putting it 2-1 in favor of Kennesaw. So what did Cedarville change?

Jones pointed to their raw performance. They made fewer mistakes and changed some of their chosen characters. However, Toyer added that Jones outdid himself.

“He basically killed the whole team by himself,” he said.

Indeed, Jones had 43 kills and 33 final hits, though Herschberger said that it was somewhat expected of the best player on the team.

Back around to Domination, Kennesaw got the zone early, but Cedarville stopped them at 55%. Alexis eliminated three players at once during the next fight for continued control, but even with that, Kennesaw became a fortress in the zone and took the first round.

The second round didn’t fare well for Cedarville. Kennesaw held for the first half of the match and nearly won, but Cedarville reclaimed at the last moment and held strong for a few minutes, matching Kennesaw’s brink-of-victory progress.

Overtime. Cedarville won by the skin of their teeth and won, delaying Kennesaw’s shrinking advantage and starting another uncommon, third round of Domination.

Kennesaw took control and refused to relinquish it, and Cedarville couldn’t gain an iota of progress all the way through overtime.

At a 3-1 defeat, the team was understandably disappointed, but they understood why. Alexis cited their strong offense and team organization that forced him to make tough decisions in hard moments, and Brackney showed their high kill count.

“I think they took off angles really well, both of my teammates would be calling me to come take different spots,” Alexis said. “Any hesitation could cost a round or a point.”

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.