With the national spring eSports playoffs right around the corner, Lafayette’s Rocket League team believes they can win the $35,000 scholarship given to the winners of the Spring Major.

Rocket League is an online game played between two teams of three players. Lafayette’s team consists of three starters and two alternates. The current roster includes seniors Jimmy Dygert and Wes Jennings and sophomore Evan Sommer as starters. The two alternates are seniors Ryan Murphy and Jonathan Ruck. 

The game’s objective is to score as many goals as possible in five minutes. It is similar to soccer but is played with cars rather than people. 

To qualify for the tournament, a team has to first win Regionals. After Regionals, 64 teams are placed in a double-elimination knockout tournament. The first team to win two games moves on while the loser is eliminated.

Sommer believes Lafayette’s team could win it all.

“I would say we have a pretty good chance. We have Wes Jennings who’s so insanely good at the game. Me and Jimmy are both pretty good. So, I think we have a pretty good chance. We almost won last year, but we just need to practice more,” Sommer said.

Last year, the team won Regionals and made it to the last 16 of the Spring Major before getting knocked out by the eventual champions. 

“We ran into a group of three guys, they were just some of the craziest people we’ve ever met. They were just absurd. Near professional level, and we held up pretty well. But unfortunately, we came up short in overtime of some matches,” Dygert said.

The team practices every Monday and Thursday and sometimes has scrimmages against college-level teams. Their regular season will go until March 31. After this, the playoffs will begin on April 8 and go till the end of the month. 

“Hopefully they can win, cause they made it to the top 16 last year.  They did really well last year, and they look better this year,”  eSports sponsor Lori Dziewa said.

The team holds a 5-1 record, as they head into the playoffs.

“Nationals will be very difficult this year.  There are a lot of competitive teams.  We would really need to buckle down and play out of our minds.  Anything is possible,” eSports sponsor Kimberly Jennings said. 

The eSports program at Lafayette has many games, but only Rocket League and Valorant have competitive teams. The other teams don’t have enough players to compete. 

“If we were to get to more people like spread the word that there is actually an eSports team, I am sure they were would be a lot more people to play the games,” Dygert said.