Often playing video games at school is frowned upon, but at 3:30 in the library a group of students gather to do just that. Esports is an organized group of gamers, they are accredited by The Missouri Scholastic Esports federation (MOSEF) founded in 2019.
The team is co-ed and consists of students from all grades, Scott Sherp sponsors the activity. Currently the team is playing Super Smash Bros and Overwatch, these are the games they compete with.
Sophomore Jaxson Burke plays “Overwatch”, he thinks Esports is just like a regular sport, “we have varsity and junior varsity, and then most games have a large school and small school. So you compete depending on the size of your school,” Burke said.Esports competes on Mondays and practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays. During practice, “we’ll do aiming. So we’ll go into a game that we made, We’ll practice our aim. But then we’ll also just, play matches. Obviously, we want to practice as a team and try to work better as a team,” Burke said.
On competition days, Sherp works with MOSEF to establish the details such as;what team will be the home team, and the codes to invite the other team to the match.
While he does that the team, “Which is 5 members of our main team, and then 1 or 2 alternates. We figure out who’s gonna play that day, which is normally the main 5. Then we normally play one match to warm up, and then we get in the lobby” Sophomore Nora Snider said.
Snider Enjoys Esports because of “getting to play as a team because I normally just play alone at home because it’s more comfortable to me, but it’s a lot of fun to just hang out with friends and be able to make new friends and have fun and compete. I enjoy trying to get better in the little competitions we have,” Snider said.
Although compared to other schools the Esports team is large they encourage new students to try it out. Noah Perryman, Esports member, thinks people should join
“because we’re also essentially just a hangout group. We’re just hanging out in the library, playing video games, and it just doubles as a MOSEF, a sponsored sport,” Perryman said.
