Esports: Kenai Smash takes second, makes friends along the way

Watching the final match of the state championship for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on Saturday, it would be impossible to tell that the players from Kenai Central High School and Chugiak High School had only met the day before.

The players — across team lines — looked like they had been friends for years Saturday morning as they gathered on couches to play friendly matches ahead of the start of the official action.

This year’s Smash playoffs make for one of the earliest in-person events for high school esports in Alaska, gathering playoff qualifying teams Kenai, Chugiak, Service High School and Anchorage Christian Schools together for the first time in the University of Alaska Anchorage Esports Lounge as they battled it out for the top honor.

The teams came together first Friday, for the quarterfinals, from which Kenai, Nikiski Middle-High School, Service and Chugiak emerged. Nikiski hadn’t come to Anchorage, and played online from home.

Semifinals began at 11 a.m. Saturday, and left Kenai and Chugiak standing alone at the top of the bracket.

The championship match pit the two teams of three players against one another in a series of one-on-one bouts in the platform fighting game. The players fought in a best-of-five games, with the first team to have two players emerge victorious take the match.

In Smash, players fight to knock their opponents off the battlefield, with each player having three “stock,” or effectively lives. If launched, the player loses a stock and is returned to the battlefield unscathed. First to run out of stock takes a loss.

The first game was played by Kenai’s Cody Good and Chugiak’s Elliot Barnes.

Going into the first round, Good ran Wii Fit Trainer into Barnes’ Villager. Barnes remained in front of the damage curve throughout the match, bringing Good down two stocks while only losing one of his own. Barnes claimed the round with 2-0 on the board.

The second round was closer, each dealing an identical amount of damage, neither losing a stock until around 2 minutes into the match. Again, Barnes found an advantage over Good and claimed a second round.

One more loss for Kenai would end the game. Barnes made a character change to Donkey Kong. Good opened the third round with a lead. The round was decided in two moments.

Good chased Barnes off the side of the map and was punished for it at the price of a stock. Barnes was stuck hanging from the edge of the map and managed to quickly roll up and land a game-winning hit — in a move called a “tech” by the players.

“I definitely could have played better,” Good said after the match. “He’s also just one of the best players in the state.”

Good said that for him, the biggest things he’s focusing on coming out of the match are his focus and his patience, keeping outside factors from having an impact on his game.

At the start of the second game, Kenai’s Kage Adkins — lovingly called Kage “Little Mac” Adkins by his teammates — entered the room dressed as the character. His look was complete with a bright pink hoodie and big green boxing gloves — he ran in throwing punches and doing pushups before taking his seat next to Chugiak’s Addison Rains.

The walkouts, which had been pitched and organized by Adkins, had all of the players smiling as they infused a little extra pomp and circumstance to the final.

“That’s the power of Kage,” Kenai coach Matthew Cross said as he watched the athletes gather together, laughing as they selected their music.

The game between Adkins and Rains went all five rounds, and both players stuck to their characters for each of them — Little Mac into Zelda.

Throughout, the two joked with each other, at times throwing a little shade, at times giving one another honest advice even as the championship title hung in the balance.

“Dude, you’ve gotta remember,” Adkins said as the fifth and final round opened. “I am Little Mac.”

The action largely revolved around two attacks — Adkins’ Little Mac’s “KO Punch” and Rains’ Zelda’s “Phantom Slash.”

The KO Punch has the power to immediately defeat lightweight characters like Zelda, but leaves Little Mac extremely vulnerable if it misses. Adkins says it’s powerful and flashy, but also that it may be the character’s worst move because of that high risk.

Adkins pulled many a stock off of Rains with a landed KO Punch, but in the final round, he lost a valuable stock on a big miss.

The Phantom Slash can be charged or uncharged to make its timing unpredictable, and Rains’ mastery of that timing made the difference in the match — which he ultimately won.

The game completed — and with two losses the match decided — Adkins and Rains rose from their seats and hugged each other tightly.

“No one had a lead,” Rains said to Adkins after the match. “It was crazy.”

Coming out of the final game of the championship, the season and his high school career, Adkins had nothing but good things to say about his team and his opponent.

“He had so many amazing reads that just threw off my entire game plan,” Adkins said.

Playing in person at UAA, Adkins said, made for a better and more memorable experience. He credited it happening at all to Cross, who made phone calls and Zoom meetings and came together with the other coaches to make the event happen. Adkins said that was because Cross saw the way Kenai and other teams were struggling with network issues during matches.

“He got this together with the help of every one of the coaches,” Adkins said. “They all came together and decided to give us the best esports experience.”

In addition to sidestepping network infrastructure, Adkins said putting a face to every player they met also served to enrich the experience.

“Coming here and playing in person has created a really good community, it’s made a lot of us family,” he said. “My opponent, [Rains], I love that guy.”

Rains offered a similar sentiment after the match, saying, “It wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be, because I made friends with the guy.”

Adkins’ Little Mac, Rains said, is the “scariest” Little Mac in the state.

“I sit beside the guy, we’re having a banter,” he said. “If it went either way, I would have been happy to lose to him, and I’m happy to win.”

Adkins said all of the players were able to bond quickly because “we’re a group of nerds and geeks who really love this game.” He said that fighting games, including Smash, are about the ambition to be the best.

“I wasn’t looking to lose,” Adkins said. He choked up as he said he was going to go home and tell his mom that his team got second, and that his team played “amazing.”

“I’m so thankful for them,” he said. “These guys, I woke up in the morning and I wanted gold, but I more wanted them to have fun.”

Going out on a game like Saturday’s, in five rounds, evenly matched with another great player, Adkins said, was a perfect way to end his high school career.

“I took him to the edge, I took him to his heels, I couldn’t be happier to lose against such a great player,” he said.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.