CHEYENNE, WY – The postseason came to a close for the Laramie County Community College esports teams as they had a pair of titles competing for national championships, highlighted by the bid for a four-peat from the Rainbow 6: Siege team in the Premier Series and a run to the Contender Series Mario Kart 8 title match by AJ Price.
The Golden Eagles rolled to yet another undefeated season in Rainbow 6 with a dominant year that saw them roll to a 10-0 record going into the title match against Lackawanna Community College from the Eastern region.
The opening map was Chalet, and the Golden Eagles opened on defense and found a back-and-forth game at the start with both teams taking a round.
Tyler Soffe kicked off a run for the Golden Eagles after winning a 1v1 battle to close out the third round and LCCC pushed to a 3-1 lead. Lackawanna rallied to tie the first map at 3-3 as the Golden Eagles switched to the attack.
Lackawanna continued their push and took the 5-3 lead on the opening round of their defense in the race to seven rounds and the Golden Eagles took a timeout to reset.
Leondro Ebell and Justin Cherubin rallied to end the run after the timeout and came back from down 4-2 in the ninth map to get the Golden Eagles back into the map and boost the positive vibes for the team.
Lackawanna held off another charge by Kiara Kershaw and Cherubin to go up 6-4 in the opening round, but the Golden Eagles came back to win the 11th and 12th round handily to force the match to overtime.
In OT, LCCC lost the opening round but came back as the defenders and forced it to the ultimate final where the Golden Eagles had to go on the attack and Cody Lewis teamed up with Kershaw to finish off the map and the comeback to win it 8-7 going to the second map.
Both sides traded opening salvos in the second map as the scene switched to Lair. The Golden Eagles were on the attack and after falling in the opening round, they came back to push ahead 2-1.
In a series of narrow wins, LCCC took a 4-2 lead going into their attack thanks to good teamwork and communication and were just three round wins from a title.
Lackawanna took their opening two rounds on the attack to even the map at 4-4 as LCCC refocused their strategy on defense to stop the bleeding.
The Golden Eagles rolled off another two wins and up 6-4 they had Lackawanna on the ropes, and they had a perfect map on defense with a flawless round to clinch their fourth straight national title and their second at the Premier Series level.
The team will be graduating three members, with Soffe and Lewis potentially coming back, but the fivesome set the bar for Rainbow 6: Siege with a 38-0 record after Cherubin joined the team in September of 2023.
Mario Kart 8
AJ Price had his run in the postseason national bracket cut to an abrupt end by Northwest Arkansas Community College and "Jerdy" in the national championship match with a game in hand after going 4-0 on the way to the title match in the double elimination bracket.
"Jerdy" had good draws in his early races and edged out Price a few times on the way to a 4-0 win in the opening match to force the bracket reset.
The fortune continued to go the opposite way of Price in the bracket reset and "Jerdy" was able to continue his run to another 4-0 win and rallied back as the number one overall seed took down the third seed.
Price still finishes as the national runner up at the Contender Series level in his first season as a member of the LCCC esports team.