Moon, PA – Finishing top four in the NACE Collegiate Playoffs, the Rocket League Blue team has seen much success in the first semester of RMU sponsoring the Esports program. However, this is not all that RMU has to offer for Rocket League. RMU has another team who has been in the shadow of the Blue team and quietly seeing some success in more than one way: the Red team.

The Red team is captained by Senior Environmental Science Major Lewis Richardson (TheSweetestLew). The other members of the roster are Senior Criminal Justice Major Dom Martinez (Vulgrim01) and Freshman Software Engineering Major Eric Klages (SkiPi). Despite being considered a 'B' team and playing many school's 'A' teams, they hold a 4-4 series record in the CSL season, and a 41-35 record overall on the year when counting league play, scrimmages, and tournaments. They most recently faced Pitt's top team who were very skilled. They were able to compete but ultimately fell to Pitt 3-2 in the best of five series.

In Rocket League, MMR is the skill level rating you are assigned based on your performances in matches. "For a 'B' team, we are already higher in MMR than some school's varsity teams," Lew stated. Lew is a Champ 2 with a 1365 MMR, and his teammates, Dom and Eric, are both Grand Champs, with MMR's of 1565 and 1604, respectively. This averages out to be a 1511 MMR which is just four points shy of averaging a full Grand Champ team.

You can view their full season stats to date in the link below:
https://rmuclubsports.com/documents/2020/2/6/RMU_Red_Cumulative_Stats_Jan_27_Updated_3_.pdf

The Red team not only competes in the CSL, however. They have done some extra work to get in more competitions. Over Christmas break, Lew organized an eight school, best of five, double elimination tournament. Five of these teams were their respective school's top teams. The tournament was all broadcasted on Twitch, with shout casters and post-game interviews. The tournament received some attention as the final series maintained a viewership of over fifty viewers.

The Red team did decently well in this, as they finished in fourth place with both of their losses coming to the eventual champions, Ferris State. It was a tough matchup, as they are 1-2 against Ferris State during the season in their scrims. "Ferris State are a very skilled team," Lew said. "Their captain, Nate, is one of the best players I have ever played. He has achieved an 1800 MMR which is that of some professional players. He has competed as a substitute in RLRS (Rocket League Rival Series) before which shows how good he really is."

In the tournament, they had to improvise at the beginning. Right before the first match, one of the players for the Red team was unable to compete. With two minutes before match time, Lew reached out to the RMU White team captain, Trevor Johnson, who quickly responded and was able to play and fill the spot. The flustered team fell 3-0 in a sweep from Ferris State; a series that featured a poor brand of Rocket League from the Red team. RMU were able to battle the lower bracket with wins against Dakota State and Peninsula, but in the semi-finals they fell yet again to Ferris State in a hard-fought series; they lost 3-1.  

The finals between Ferris State and UConn were an intense set of series where Ferris State won the first round to reset the bracket, and then won again to take the tournament. A mix of competitiveness and high viewership led some tensions high and created a rivalry between these two schools. 

The first link is to the bracket and the second link is to the stats from this tournament:
https://rmuclubsports.com/documents/2020/2/6/rl_tourney_bracket.pdf
https://rmuclubsports.com/documents/2020/2/4/Holiday_Tournament_Stats.pdf

Currently, Lewis created a league for the Spring semester to get more competitions in for the schools. It is called the Collegiate Amateur Rocket League (CARL) Cup. The league is a six team, five-week season where everyone plays everyone twice. The teams involved along with RMU Red are UConn, Ferris State, Dakota State, Westminster, and Stockton University. RMU Red is off to a 1-0 start after beating Westminster 3-0 last week. Tonight, they will play Dakota State.

While these organized events are helping the team compete more and get better, this was not Lew's initial intention. "I wanted to broaden our horizons," Lew said. "We got to play against teams like Peninsula College. They are the furthest west team in the mainland United States. Ferris State is from Michigan, and we played teams from Dakota and Connecticut. With creating this tournament, we got to play some schools who we would have never played in CSL. With this  we met some new people and even play with them now in scrimmages."
David Roebuck '20
Esports Editor, RMU Club Sports