Windham High School eSports showing promise as new fall sport

Windham High's eSports team does a pregame warmup
before their meet on Tuesday, Oct. 12 at Windham High
School against Florida's Southeast High School. From left
are Alex Pooler, Alexander Greslick, Brady White, Aidan 
Poitras and Brayden Roberts.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA 

By Matt Pascarella

A new sport has joined the fall line up at Windham High School. What’s known as eSports, or electronic sports, is competitive video game play, which can be played individually or on a team.

The eSports program is offered at high schools and colleges all over the country. For Windham High School’s team, there were not enough Maine eSports teams, so the Eagles are part of the Eastern Region eSports League.

Although the Eagles lost their second match of their season, 2-0, to Florida’s Southeast High School on Tuesday, Oct. 12 at Windham High School, Windham had great communication and a solid game plan, adapting well to changes during the match.

If eSports seems like a new thing, it’s not. The earliest known competitive video game match was held at Stanford University for the game “Spacewar” in 1972. Since then, competitive video game play has grown exponentially.

The game played by Windham’s eSports team is “League of Legends,” a multiplayer game where two teams on either side of a playing field clash in the middle and battle it out with the goal being to destroy the opposing team’s base. Matches are two games, with a third match played if needed to break a tie.

In Game One of Tuesday’s match, Florida’s Southeast High School jumped to an early lead and couldn’t be stopped after that as Florida took Game One.

In Game Two, Windham tied with Florida early on. The Eagles held their own in the beginning of Game Two. Southeast High School pulled ahead, but the Eagles were steadily putting points on the board.

While Windham had better communication in Game Two, they fell to Southeast High School and lost the match 2-0.

In addition to game play, Windham eSports Coach Seth Fournier ends practices with a workout and a run.

“There’s a lot of hand eye coordination, a lot of fast mouse movements,” said Fournier. “A lot of fast key movements and they have to be thinking, they have to be ready; that’s why I think the physical training is just as important.”

Fournier wants to teach his athletes balance, that video games can be an aspect of their life.

For Windham sophomore Alex Pooler, this is his first time playing video games competitively.

“It’s nice, it’s something new,” said Pooler. “It’s nice to have a team instead of playing with people I’ve never met before.”

Pooler said there’s strategy to eSports. There are many qualities, like strategizing, that mirror a sport like soccer or football. He said you have to plan and execute strategies well.

Fournier said Game Two was better communicated than Game One; the Eagles had better movement in Game Two.

“It just came down to execution for us. If we had brought it together in that second game, we could have at least forced a game three. That’s what I was most impressed by was the plan we had going in,” said Fournier. <