eSports ‘F-smashes’ way to victory in week 6 against Norco High School

Team goes to 3-2 on the season as Samuel Duran and Benjamin Velarde dominate Norco High School, propelling CHS to a 2-1 victory

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Noah Limon

Samuel Duran and Benjamin Velarde celebrate after Colton’s eSports team defeats Norco High, 2-1 on Nov. 2.

Colton, CA—After struggling over the last two weeks, the Yellowjackets got back on track Wednesday with a much needed victory over Norco High School, 2-1.

Colton entered week six of the eight week season ranked #31 in PlayVS competition with a record of 2-2 against a Norco High team ranked #30. With this victory, they improve to 3-2, and increased their ranking to #23.

This week’s three-player line-up for the “Super Smash Brothers” matches included Noah Limon, Samuel Duran, and Benjamin Velarde.

“Super Smash Brothers” is a sparring game in which characters from a wide range of properties featured for Nintendo systems are selected to fight one another.

Limon was first up, continuing with his strategy of randomly selecting avatars for fighting. His first character was Kazuya from the “Tekken” series and he was put into action against the Pokémon Jigglypuff. The hotly contested battle ended on a forward smash by Jigglypuff, putting Limon down 1-0 for the deciding second game. This time, Limon switched his strategy and selected Marth from the “Fire Emblem” game series to fight Jigglypuff. Limon took an early lead, having Jigglypuff on the ropes, but the pink blob fought back and won 3-2, putting Colton in an early 1-0 hole overall in the best-of-three match.

The second set of games featured Samuel Duran and a controversy. Before each game, the players from both teams communicate via the PlayVS website to select virtual battlegrounds for their characters. One player indicates a preference for type of battleground, the other player chooses the specific location. Duran asked for a larger battleground space, but Norco’s player selected a smaller one called “Final Destination.”

Ultimately, this bit of gamesmanship didn’t matter as Duran swept Norco’s player in two straight games. He played first as Proto Man from the “Mega Man” game series in the first game against Robin from “Fire Emblem,” winning 3-1. Then he switched to a customizable Mii Gunner character from “Mega Man” and took the second game 3-2.

“I like projectiles,” Duran said about his character selection strategy.

The third set belonged to Velarde, who dominated Norco with his main, Little Mac. In the first game, facing off against R.O.B., the classic NES robot, he won 3-1. Then in the second game, Norco changed characters to the more mobile Sora from “Kingdom Hearts,” but the result was the same, with Velarde again winning 3-1.

“I just F-smashed until it worked,” Velarde said gleefully as he celebrated the victory with teammates.

Coach Alexandra Buskirk was excited for her team. “They came back, thank goodness. I feel like they assessed well and worked together.”

The team will continue PlayVS action next week.