Recent rankings from ESPN show that Winthrop’s esports team for League of Legends is ranked number 18 out of the top 25 teams in the preseason for the first time in history. The voting is calculated and polled among almost 40 collegiate esports teams around the continent. Head coach, Josh Sides, expressed his excitement about the ranking and shares what contributed to that accomplishment.
“Yes, we are so excited that our League of Legends team was ranked in the top twenty-five of ESPN’s first rankings of the season,” Sides said. “I am proud of our League of Legends team being ranked number eighteen in the first ESPN rankings of the year.”
“I think people learned that we had a strong roster through competitions last semester, and now that people are becoming aware of our new roster additions, combined with some big results like the win over number three Harrisburg [on Jan. 18], I think we might see that ranking jump up a bit when the next set of rankings comes out in two weeks.”
William “Mordio” Yang, esports team member and an international business major, expressed his thoughts about the ranking and how he feels that the team deserves a higher rank.
“I think our ranking may be due to misinformation; the ranking comes from people who have little to irrefutable credentials,” Yang said. “Personally, I would say that our university is easily within the top five of the country. According to the ranking system, just last week we beat the number three team in the country.”
The transfer student also shared a major strength that the team shares.
“I would say that we’re really good at communicating,” Yang said. “Seldom will there be a team where there are numerous strong members that are constantly being vocal. There’s a problem with a lot of players within the community having difficulty communicating, so I think that’s one of our more valuable traits.”
Coach Sides also noted some struggles that the team is learning to push through.
“So far the biggest struggle has been building synergies between the new players and the players from last semester, having only started practicing a few weeks back,” Sides said. “The team is very mechanically gifted and has a very high ceiling for what we can achieve, I think.”
Additionally, the League of Legends team celebrates the welcoming of two new members: freshman, William “Doxa” Lee and sophomore, Kenji “Srkenji” Kaneko.
“They are both very highly regarded players, obtaining slots right into the starting 5 as some of the best players at their position in all of collegiate League of Legends,” Sides said.
“The new additions to the team are a definite upgrade from last semester,” Yang said. “They’re really good at communicating and are just better players overall individually. The skill level has more than doubled with them.”
Coach Sides revealed a common goal that the team has for the upcoming season.
“One of our biggest goals is to make it to top 8 of the CLoL competition and compete for the National Championship live at Riot Game’s Studios in LA,” Sides said.
Yang described this goal as Winthrop’s League of Legends team simply striving to become the number one team in the country.”
Photo provided by @WinthropEsports on Twitter
