IC Esports Finish Day One of Competition At The 2024 Midwest Esports Conference LAN

DEERFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois College Esports team began the two-day Midwest Esports Conference Lan at the Hyatt Regency Saturday evening. At the LAN, IC took second in Smash with Jake Petrovich as other student-athletes earned first-place finishes in Madden, NBA 2k, and Mortal Kombat.  

The IC Rocket League team finished the round robin phase with a 7-5 record that earned fourth in the group out of seven teams. IC was able to take a game off of the #1 seed Cleveland State University. 

During the first round robin against Cleveland State, IC took them down 3-0 in the series that included a clean defensive performance throughout. IC was the only institution that took a series off of CSU in the round robin. That defeat was the defining moment of day one by far for IC.

Early on, IC faced Cornell College in a five-game series that went back-and-forth the entire time. In game 5, IC took a 3-0 lead then Cornell came roaring back with three goals of there own. In the final minute, IC closed out the series by scoring three goals in successive fashion.

As the day progressed, IC and Cleveland State had another battle. In the second matchup, IC took the early 2-0 lead but unfortunately got revenge from CSU as IC dropped the match. The final game was extremely close and went into overtime as CSU's Ciprocate netted the series winning goal with a game time of 6:59. 

"We're heading into tomorrow with confidence knowing that we can take games and series off the best teams in the tournament. The day was a marathon with about 11 hours of games and we plan to go far on day 2" said Head Coach David Seering. 

IC will conclude action at the MEC with day two performances on Sunday starting at 10:00AM in Deerfield, Illinois.