Rocket League team qualifies for next tournament

Algonquin College Green, one of the college’s Rocket League teams, qualified on Feb. 4 for the spring tournament by making it into the top eight in the Ontario Collegiate Rocket Soccer winter cup tournament.

Algonquin College Green was eliminated in the fifth round of the losers bracket by the University of British Columbia. Team Green had a rough series start, losing 2-5. However, they showed grit in the second match.

The team’s members include Daniel “The Insane Dan” Aguilar, a physics accounting major in level two, Aaron “OrganizedChaos” Thompson, a computer engineering technology major in level three and coach Brodyn Allen, a level-seven student in the Bachelor of public safety honours co-op program.

The group fought hard in a closely contested match, but ultimately lost 3-4 ending the series.

“The latency was unfortunate because we were playing on west coast servers,” said Allen. “We all thought this was the main reason we lost. We have a really solid team too. Dan is insane on defence.”

Although the team is solid, they are also always on the lookout for new players to join them.

“We’re actually trying to find new players through our tryouts,” said Allen. “If people are interested they can check out the ACEsports Discord game discussion channel or email us.”

“There is also LAN (local area network) events in the summer where our players play against professional players to get some experience against the best,” added Allen.

The team’s goal is to make it into the Collegiate Rocket League, the competitive league for undergraduates by winning their next tournament in the spring.

“If we made it into CRL, we’d be super pumped. The guys would get the in-game CRL title. It would be good for everyone,” said Allen.

After finishing seventh in the winter tournament, Team Green is feeling optimistic enough about LAN events that they’re getting jerseys.

The members of the Algonquin College Green team weren’t the only contenders from the college in the competition, however. Algonquin College Black, the second team for Algonquin, played alongside Team Green, trying to eliminate the competition.

Unfortunately, Team Black was eliminated by the Waterloo Warriors in a 0-2 series sweep. They lost 3-1 in their first game, and then 6-0 in the second game of the third round of the losers bracket.

Ayman Huda, a level-two computer engineering technology student and player for Team Black, had some thoughts after the game about what they might have done differently.

“As a team, we discussed and agreed that we need to practice and run games together more, so we can develop good chemistry,” said Huda.

“We were running into each other, double committing on the ball, and not trusting each other. By running games and practising together, we can create chemistry, teamwork and an understanding of our play styles.”

For the future, Team Black will be focusing on building a strong second team.

“We might have had a chance to move forward in the tournament if we did those things together,” said Huda.