THIS WEEK IN PEACOCK ESPORTS... The Upper Iowa University Esports team was unable to secure a victory in any of their three contests over a busy week. The Peacocks fell by a score of 2-0 in their best-of-three Valorant match against the Murray State University's Team Gold on Monday before falling by a score of 3-2 in overtime in their best-of-five Rocket League match against Highland Community College on Tuesday. UIU also fell by a score of 2-0 in Valorant on Tuesday in a rescheduled match against the University of British Columbia - Okanagan despite some strong stretches of play.
NECC VALORANT - 11/1... Upper Iowa fell by a score of 2-0 in the best-of-three match against Murray State University's Team Gold. Opening play on the map "Haven," the Peacocks fell by a score of 13-1 in the best-of-25 map. On the second map, "Icebox," the Peacocks fell by a score of 13-2 as the Racers clinched a 2-0 win in the match.
Map 1 (Haven): The Peacocks got the first kill of the opening round, but
Robert Ngo was the last Peacock standing as the Racers had three players remaining. Ngo picked up a nice double kill, but he was gunned down as Murray State took a 1-0 lead. Ngo picked up two more kills in round two, but MSU won the round to go up 2-0.
Caleb Glube had three kills in round four and UIU defused the bomb to cut their deficit to 2-1, but the Racers played a flawless round by wiping out the Peacocks without losing a member of their squad to go up 3-1. Murray State continued their strong play after UIU's round win as they locked the Peacocks down and claimed a 13-1 win in the best-of-25 first map. Glube had a chance to get a win for Upper Iowa in round seven after notching four kills, but he could not defuse the bomb in the last second as UIU lost the round.
UIU Stats
Map 2 (Icebox): Looking to turn things around on their favorite map, the Peacocks got two quick kills and a three-kill round from
Aiden Zeller in round one, but the Racers picked up the win to go up 1-0. Murray State won round two before Upper Iowa compiled a flawless round in round three with the help of three kills from Glube to cut their deficit to 2-1. In a similar fashion to map one, MSU locked things down after the UIU win as they won five consecutive rounds to go up 7-1. The Peacocks stopped the bleeding with a win in round nine after picking up the first three kills of the map and planting the bomb to cut their deficit to 7-2. The Racers answered in a big way once again by taking the next five rounds to go up 12-2 and push the score to a map point. Upper Iowa got a huge start from Zeller with a quick triple kill in the 15th round, but UIU lost as MSU clinched the win on the map and the 2-0 win in the match.
UIU Stats
NECC ROCKET LEAGUE - 11/2... Upper Iowa matched up against Highland Community College in Rocket League on Tuesday. The back-and-forth match saw the teams trade wins in the first four games of the best-of-five match, and games four and five were decided in overtime. The Scotties came out on top in each of the two overtime rounds as they claimed a 3-2 win over the Peacocks in the best-of-five contest.
The Peacocks took an early 1-0 lead after a goal from
Brady Krupa on his first shot of the match, and Krupa scored off of an assist from
Sean Odegard at the 1:43 mark to double the UIU lead to 2-0 in round one. No more goals were scored as the Peacocks finished the game with a 2-0 lead to take a 1-0 advantage in the best-of-five match.
In game two, HCC scored the first goal of round two with 2:10 on the clock before doubling their lead to 2-0 at the 1:25 mark. Krupa came up with a quick answer just six seconds later off an assist from Odegard, cutting the UIU deficit to 2-1. The Peacocks missed a golden opportunity to tap in a goal on the doorstep with 16 seconds on the clock, but the touch was missed as UIU was unable to tie the score. HCC closed out the 2-1 win in the round to tie the match at 1-1.
A pair of missed touches on defense led to an HCC goal with 4:13 on the clock as they took a 1-0 advantage in game three. Odegard assisted Krupa to tie the round at 1-1 with 2:43 on the clock. Odegard scored a go-ahead solo goal with 58 seconds left on the clock, and the Peacocks got lucky as a quick counterattack from Highland saw the Scotties' shot bounce off the crossbar. Krupa secured an important save with just 26 seconds remaining, and the Peacocks held on to win the game by a score of 2-1 and take a 2-1 lead in the match.
Highland scored the opening goal of the fourth game at the 4:12 mark, but UIU answered quickly with a solo goal from Odegard at the 3:58 mark. The Scotties reclaimed the lead with 3:34 on the clock, and Krupa made back-to-back saves on the next two shots of the match as HCC continued their attack. Krupa dunked a high ball in with 57 seconds on the clock as UIU tied things at 2-2. Krupa made a nice save at the 34-second mark, and he saw a shot miss just high on a late attack with 17 seconds on the clock before the teams went to overtime. HCC needed just 10 seconds of extra time to score the golden goal, claiming a 3-2 win and tying the best-of-five match at 2-2.
In a winner-take-all fifth round, HCC scored the opening goal with 4:43 on the clock to take an early 1-0 lead. Odegard assisted Krupa on a tying goal just 18 seconds later, and Krupa returned the favor by assisting Odegard on a score at the 4:07 mark to give UIU a 2-1 lead. HCC and UIU each suffered very near misses on consecutive attacks as neither team could convert. HCC knotted things up with a goal at the 3:15 mark as the closely contested match continued. The Scotties put in a go-ahead goal at the 2:40 mark as they took a 3-2 lead. Krupa played a long ball that bounced high over the Highland goal, but he rebounded his shot and put in a goal with 1:18 remaining to tie the score at three goals apiece. The teams went to overtime once again, and Odegard barely missed a pair of fantastic early looks as he saw shots bounce high and wide just 15 seconds into the period. Krupa made a save on the ensuing HCC attack, and
Cody Lawrence saw a shot miss just high at the 58-second mark as each team pulled out all the stops in hopes of a win in the winner-take-all game. After some back and forth play, Highland scored the golden goal after 2:17 of extra time, claiming the 4-3 win in the game to clinch the 3-2 win in the match.
UIU Match Stats:
NECC VALORANT - 11/2 (Rescheduled from 10/11)... Upper Iowa fell by a score of 2-0 in a closely contested best-of-three match against the University of British Columbia - Okanagan. Opening play on the map "Icebox," the Peacocks fell by a score of 13-8 in the best-of-25 map. On the second map, "Ascent," Upper Iowa bounced back, and the Peacocks and Chargers needed overtime rounds to decide the map winner. UIU lost the 26th round by mere fractions of a second, and UAH went on to win by two to claim the 15-13 win in the map and a 2-0 win in the match.
Map 1 (Icebox): Starting the map on the attacking side, UIU quickly planted the bomb in round one, but UBC-Okanagan made a strong push to wipe out the Peacocks and defuse the spike to win the opening round. UBC defused a UIU plant in round two to take a 2-0 lead, and wins in the third and fourth rounds gave UBC a quick 4-0 lead. After a quick plant in round five, the Peacocks lost a 1-v-1 late in the round as
Aiden Zeller was the last Peacock standing after a three-kill round. He got killed while the enemy was defusing, but he provided enough of a distraction to allow the bomb to explode and win UIU's first round. UIU continued their momentum with a win in round six as they cut their deficit to 4-2, and a Peacock win in round seven led to a timeout being called by UBC-Okanagan. UBC put together a flawless round after the timeout as they wiped out the Peacocks without losing a team member, pushing their lead to 5-3 in the process. UBC increased their lead to 6-3 after defusing a Peacock plant, but the Peacocks took a big tenth round with a strong attack and subsequent defense of their planted bomb, including a late double kill from
Sean Odegard, to cut the score to 6-4. UIU notched the first three kills of the 11th round and the Peacocks successfully planted the bomb and held on to win the round and make it a 6-5 game. UBC snuck in and got off a quick defuse in round 12 after another early Peacock plant, pushing their lead back to 7-5 before the teams switched sides.
Odegard picked up a 3K in UIU's first round on the defensive side, cutting their deficit to 7-6. The Peacocks picked up four quick kills and
Caleb Glube secured a three-kill round as UIU finished with a flawless round to knot the score at seven rounds apiece. UBC-Okanagan prevented Upper Iowa from taking a lead despite another two-kill round from Glube as UBC took an 8-7 lead with the round-15 win. The Eagles won the ninth round after UIU missed some chances at kills where they got the drop on their opponents, and UBC went up 9-7. UIU just missed getting a defuse in round 17 after a hard push from both sides, and UBC went up 10-7. Zeller opened round 18 with a pair of quick kills, and Glube got the next two kills as UIU held a 4-1 man advantage and prevented UBC from planting the spike to cut their deficit to 10-8. Zeller and Glube got a pair of quick kills to make it a 3-v-3 and a 4-v-3 after a revive, but a member of UBC picked up four quick kills to close out the round and put the Eagles up 11-8. UBC won round 20 to go up 12-8 and push the contest to a map point, and the Eagles clinched the map with a win in round 21 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three match.
UIU Stats
Map 2 (Ascent): An exciting, back-and-forth round one saw the Peacocks play to a 2-v-1 man advantage, but it came down to a 1-v-1 with
Aiden Zeller as the final Peacock standing. Zeller killed the final Eagle as the bomb ticked away, and he defused the spike with seconds remaining to put the Peacocks ahead 1-0. UIU doubled their lead to 2-0 after the action started quickly in round two, and Glube compiled a four-kill round to help UIU double their lead. UBC won the third round to cut their deficit to 2-1, and a big round win in round four for the Eagles tied the score and gave UBC a significant economy advantage. UBC used their advantage to claim a dominant, flawless win in round five and take a 3-2 lead, leading to a UIU timeout. The Peacock timeout proved to be successful as they took a quick 4-2 man advantage, and UIU closed it out to win the sixth round and tie the score at 3-3. UBC claimed a quick 4-2 man advantage of their own in round seven, and UBC got the plant down and saw the bomb go off to take a 4-3 lead. The Eagles claimed a flawless win in round eight to go up 5-3. Zeller got a quick first kill in round nine, but UBC got a kill of their own and a revive before another kill made it a 5-3 advantage in players for the Eagles. UBC closed out the win to go up 6-3, leaving the Peacocks with an economy that was in shambles and preventing UIU from buying better weapons and equipment. UBC took round ten to claim a 7-3 lead, and the Eagles pushed their lead to 9-3 as they strung together a dominant stretch ahead of the teams switching sides.
UBC secured a dominant flawless win in the first round after the switch to go up 10-3, and another flawless round in round 14 pushed their lead to 11-3. UIU spent all their money in round 15 as they looked to gear up and attempt to start a comeback, and the Peacocks got out to a 4-v-2 advantage in players before increasing it to 4-1 and taking out the final Eagle to claim the win and cut their deficit to 11-4. Glube picked up two kills to give UIU a 4-3 man advantage, and he just missed a third kill after getting the jump on an Eagle player. UBC turned the tide and won the round to go up 12-4 and push it to a map point. UBC won a closely contested 17th round to clinch the 13-4 win on the map and the 2-0 win in the match.
UIU Stats
UP NEXT... The Peacocks are scheduled to play Purdue University's Team White on Monday, Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in Valorant before facing Buena Vista University in Rocket League on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 8:45 p.m. Head to Twitch.tv/Peacock_Esports to cheer on the Peacocks and catch all the UIU action live or as recorded broadcasts after the completion of the contests.
