NCMC Pirates Overwatch Esports team started their NJCAAE preseason last night in a best of 5 matchup against Hocking College Hawks. The Pirates fell 0-3. The overall matchup was close all three games. "NJCAAE announced the regular season to be pushed back 2 additional weeks for Covid-19 reasons to allow other colleges to be able to register. By doing that, NJCAAE made a preseason for the colleges that were already signed up. It was a huge surprise when we found out we had our first matchup of the preseason last night. I notified my players as soon as I found out and we made the best of it and they did not disappoint; we fought hard and played an amazing match." –Head Coach Chris Flowers
The Pirates Overwatch team started their first game of the night with a game of control on the map Lijiang Tower. NCMC pushed tried to take control of the objective point first but Hocking Colleges' aggressiveness was too much for the Pirates at first. Hocking led the score 99%-0% before NCMC could overtake control of the objective. NCMC held objective and played defense forcing the score to 62%-100% Pirates falling to an objective score of 0-1. Second round of game 1 NCMC pushed back hard on offense running a Pharah/Mercy offense, along with a Winston/Zarya tank combination. The Pirates were able to force a score of 99%-100% with the Hawks taking round two of game one. Hocking College 1-0.
Game two was played as a hybrid map on Kings Row. NCMC ran a Reinhardt/Zarya comp along with a Lucio/Moira healer comp. Hocking College held good defense position on the payload capture point. The Pirates came up with a strategy of utilizing protective bubble from Zarya and using it to protect Reinhardt while using the speed boost from Lucio to push NCMC offense forward and aggressively take the point over wiping Hocking College defense.
The Pirates were able to push the payload forward reaching the finishing objective on the map and taking a 3-0 point lead. The Hawks came back to push the payload to the final objective point making the score tied 3-3 and forcing an overtime. NCMC captured the payload and secured a score of 4-3. Hawks came back and pushed their payload past NCMC finishing point to secure the win of game two. Hocking College lead 2-0.
Game three was assault on the map Hanamura. NCMC figuring out what offense strategy worked for them, they continued to use the Zarya/Reinhardt/Lucio speed boost bubble comp to overtake both objectives to gain the lead of 2-0. Hocking College came back on the offensive and used Dive comp against The Pirates struggled to find a weakness in their offense at first and the Hawks took both objectives and tied game three at 2-2. NCMC in overtime took point one to take the lead of 3-2. The Hawks came back to take the objective and won game three. Hocking College won the matchup 3-0 overall.
"I am very pleased with the way we performed last night, due to last minute notice of us having a game and not having one of my starters on the lineup last night, I couldn't be happier with what I saw from my team. We played aggressively and we found weaknesses in Hocking defense and forced two overtime games with both coming down to the final seconds. My Overwatch team should be more than proud of themselves." –Head Coach Chris Flowers
NCMC Esports are back in action on Monday September 28th with the first games of the season for their Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege Teams. Rainbow Six will start the night off at 5:00 pm and Fortnite teams of Cole Rorebeck and Austin Dewey to follow at 6:00 pm