After 12 weeks of intensive gaming, four teams remain in contention for the inaugural Orange County High School Esports League Championship that will be decided this Saturday.
Teams from La Quinta High in Westminster, Fountain Valley High, Cypress High and Sunny Hills High in Fullerton have outlasted 34 other teams in the tournament that launched in January.
Through the e-sports league, teams compete against each other weekly in the game League of Legends, a team-oriented strategy game set in mystical forests where competitors select avatars with unique fighting skills. These characters range from sword-wielding warriors to sorcerers that cast spells on opponents.
The battlefield is a virtual reality world of the massively popular online game. The combat tools used by the team were keyboards, mice, headsets and high-definition monitors attached to PCs.
The league was created to promote science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, using online gaming.
“The inaugural season for the Orange County High School Esports League has been one filled with lots of impressive competition among dedicated student teams,” said Tom Turner, director of STEM at OCDE. “At the same time, we are learning a lot about how e-sports can positively impact students (and STEM learning) through communication, teamsmanship and data-driven problem solving.”
The last four teams will face off Saturday in the final rounds at the Esports Arena Orange County in Santa Ana. The competition begins at 10 a.m. and is free to the public.
The program is a collaboration funded by the Samueli Foundation in partnership with OCDE, Orange County STEM Initiative, Connected Camps, UCI Connected Learning Lab, UCI Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, UCI Esports, UCI Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Alvarez & Marsal.
Here are the teams competing Saturday:
La Quinta High, Westminster
Team members with their avatar names in parenthesis:
Brandon T. (Hieuwe), Brandon N. (theWisePup), Louis L. (iTrash), Mikey N. (MIKEYXD), Randy C. (iFalse), William L. (iMango)
Sunny Hills High, Fullerton
Team members: Austin K. (fsho), Daniel K. (realzero), Erik K. (you are a), Joseph L. (Sana), Nathan L. (xstormarch), Nathan P. (blackpink rose)
Cypress High
Team members: Allen N. (Perditis), David K. (Heechan), Jacob S. (Leehwan), Min Geun K. (Mingeun), Nelson P. (Elichosuna)
Fountain Valley High
Team members: Jason T. (ImRemedys), Calvin H. (iOWgamer), Khoi P. (Fv Ares), Martin V. (N0RMIE), Micheal V. (d0rky), Sean J. (Argo OG)
