SLUH’s Varsity Blue team lost a tough matchup against CBC Black this past week, losing the series 3-2 while struggling with controller issues.

The team, consisting of Hunter Mueller (TJ74), Zeke Esswien (MrPanda), and Cam Gegg (Viznari), have been looking to make a big impact in the program’s first year at SLUH. They faced a tough opponent in CBC’s 4-1 team in their 6th week of competitive play. The team came strong out of the gates, scoring 4 goals within two minutes into the first game. SLUH applied excellent pressure and left CBC in a tough position to start off the match. The teams traded a few goals throughout the middle of the game, but SLUH took back the reigns near the end, scoring a few extra goals to take game 1 9-2. 

“Game 1 we came out flying. We were really hyped up about playing against CBC,” team captain Hunter Mueller explained. 

Game 2 looked to be headed the same direction. SLUH was once again in the lead within the first minute, applying intense pressure and taking a 3-1 lead early on. However, the CBC team started to adapt to SLUH’s aggressive play style and began to hold their own on defense. SLUH was kept scoreless throughout the rest of the game while CBC scored 2 more goals to take the game to overtime. SLUH managed to keep CBC out of their net on multiple great opportunities but ultimately fell 4-3 after a minute of overtime play. 

Game 3 also went back and forth as both teams played tight defense while still managing to capitalize on offensive opportunities, pushing the game into overtime tied 2-2. This time, it was less than a minute before CBC was able to close it out on a nice shot that slipped between SLUH defenders. It wouldn’t be long before SLUH found their stride in game 4. They took a 2-0 lead only 16 seconds into the game off a great passing play followed by a botched kickoff by CBC. SLUH was able to expand that lead throughout the game and ended up cleanly winning 5-1. 

“Our rotations were super strong, we were getting pressure on them, and they couldn’t get good chances to get the ball out of their zone,” Mueller commented in response to their dominant wins in games 1 and 4. “We did really good on stealing boost, and that just didn’t allow them to build up a defense and get powerful clears when they needed it.” 

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to find that sort of success in game 5. The team went down 0-1 early on and were never able to make a recovery. While they held a great defense for the rest of the game, they were unable to find any success on the offensive and lost 0-1, making CBC the winner of the match. 

While SLUH lost the match, they were also having some technical issues behind the scenes, namely Zeke Esswein’s controller. While warming up for the match, the trio was playing online ranked matches when something strange began to occur. The button on his controller that controls boosting the car suddenly stopped working. Because of this problem, Zeke needed to switch to an older generation controller supplied by the Science Center. While Zeke was able to play with this controller, it seemed to have some connection errors. 

“It used a different cable to connect to the PC,” Mueller remarked. “This connection with that cable is not as secure, it’s not as strong, it’s not as tight.” While the controller only lost connection for a brief moment now and then, any disruption of the inputs on the controller can make a drastic difference while attempting the difficult tricks these players can pull off. 

“Zeke had about 3 opportunities where he could have had easy goals in game 5 alone,” Mueller said. “He is a very good mechanical player and probably has the best mechanics on the team. He doesn’t make those mistakes. That’s not him.” 

Despite the issues, CBC did play and adapt well to SLUH’s playstyle, ultimately winning the series and dropping SLUH to a 4-2 record. With the playoffs coming up in mid-November, this was a crucial match for both teams. While SLUH isn’t out of it by any means, it will take some important victories for SLUH Blue to make the playoffs. Even through a tough loss like that the team remains hopeful for a playoff run. 

“We’re gonna be in the playoffs, and we’re gonna make a deep run,” said captain Mueller. “I hope everyone can at least try to make it to the science center Omnimax theater on November 13 to come spectate. We’re gonna show you how good of a Rocket League program the U-High has in its first year.”