MSSU esports team wraps up successful season
The Missouri Southern State University Esports team recently wrapped up its most successful season to date, with four winning records across five games, three playoff qualifications, a division and conference championship, and went undefeated in the regular season in one game. MOSO Esports competed in "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," "Rocket League," "Super Smash Bros Ultimate," "Overwatch 2" and "Marvel Rivals" this semester. In "Marvel Rivals," MSSU had an undefeated regular season, winning 21 best-of-five series and going 3-0 in all of those best-of-five series.
The team won the conference with this record before falling in the quarterfinals to California State University Sacramento. The Lions fielded two teams, a varsity and junior varsity, for "Mario Kart. " The varsity team went 9-1 and beat the University of South Florida to win the program's first division title.
The junior varsity squad went 1-9. The "Super Smash Bros" team went 6-1 in the regular season, finishing second in conference before losing in the quarterfinals to Robert Morris University. The "Rocket League" team went 4-3, just missing out on the postseason, and the team for "Overwatch" went 2-6.
“Especially the three playoff teams, blew away my expectations,” said coach Jesse Brower, “We’re still very much in a growth phase. ” “Since our coach was hired, the organization as a whole has started flying upward,” said Mansour Alaql, a four-year member of the team. He is also a senior advisor and captain of the "Rocket League" team.
“We used to score bottom (of the) leaderboard back then and only dreamt of qualifying for playoffs, let alone playing semifinals and finals. ” Both Brower and Alaql said this has been the team's most successful season. “It’s good to see because a lot of students put in a lot of hard work," Brower said.