Kenai wins 1st esports championship

During the final round of the Alaska School Activities Association’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Fall End of Season Tournament on Thursday, Kenai Central High School’s Blake Gillis hit a key counter against Lathrop High School’s Alex Herman to end the game and win the match. His teammates were more preoccupied with the mechanics of the move than the fact they had just become state champions.

In besting Lathrop 3-2, the Kardinals claimed not just Kenai Central’s first esports state title but also the first for the Kenai Peninsula. The Kardinals last season had fallen second place to Chugiak High School in the same game. The Kardinals have also previously taken a second place finish in the state championship for League of Legends.

The fall seasons for Alaska esports are given less pomp and circumstance by ASAA, with only Smash being played in a state league and an “End of Season Tournament” being held rather than a “Spring Championship.” The Kardinals stand at the top of the state competition nonetheless, after entering the playoffs at the second seed. They advanced to the state final after sweeping their own teammates, Kenai’s team 2, in a semifinal match last week.

Securing Kenai’s first title, Lopez said, is a big milestone and the culmination of “a few years” spent building esports at Kenai.

“It’s a really nice achievement,” he said. “All the work that they put in, trying to get this club and program going.”

Smash is a platform fighting game in which players battle to knock their opponent off the stage a certain number of times. Damage inflicted to an opponent increases the distance they can be launched by big hits. In ASAA matches, teams of three players play a best of five games, each of those games consisting of one-on-one rounds played best of three.

Kenai’s Gillis and Lathrop’s Herman, who ultimately battled the final round against each other, also opened the match. Gillis was playing King K. Rool — a heavy crocodile who’s also a pirate — into Herman’s Steve, the blank-slate protagonist of Minecraft. Gillis and his team said they were nervous about playing into Steve, but Gillis handily dispatched Herman in two rounds to put the Kardinals up 1-0.

Next to play for Kenai was Eli Castro, who took retro-gaming icon Mr. Game and Watch against a Bowser played by Lathrop’s Weston Foster. Again, Kenai prevailed, Castro taking a two-round win over Foster despite his opponent shifting to Little Mac.

In the third game, the Kardinals were faced with Lathrop’s Davin Malzahn, whose Kazuya play was notorious. Kaizen Fuller played that game and a fourth against Malzahn, falling in two rounds both times. Fuller tried playing Cloud, Mewtwo and Fox McCloud, but never managed a response to Malzahn’s dominant Kazuya.

The Kardinals said they knew Malzahn would be a major roadblock, but he could only play two games. They just needed to win the other three. With Malzahn out of the picture, Kenai and Lathrop were tied 2-2.

So Gillis and Herman had a rematch of the first game. Herman initially stuck to his Steve, but switched to Ness after Gillis shut him out without getting launched even once. The switch didn’t prove enough to give the Malamutes an edge, and Gillis closed the game — and the match — in two rounds.

Gillis said after the match he was glad he didn’t have to try and handle Malzahn’s Kazuya. He said he had entered the match similarly worried about Herman’s Steve, but “I learned the matchup.”

He was ready keep playing, asking Lopez immediately after the match what came next. The answer, to his disappointment, was winter break. Esports will pick back up in February.

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