by Adam Saldivar and Phoenix Bedolla
Founded in 2019, the Minarets E-Sports team, also known as the Cavalry, continues to practice and expand its numbers. Juan Ortiz, head advisor of the club, said, “Minarets E-Sports has grown a lot from just starting with a few participants on Discord to around 50-75 active people being involved on the E-Sports Discord server.”
E-Sports coach Ben Regonini explained, “E-Sports has grown immensely at Minarets from its inception last year. Ortiz has done an amazing job in promoting and organizing our E-Sports club and teams.” But he also explained that the "biggest issue this year is not being able to play in-person and be the same network for connection/latency issues.”
Despite these challenges, club members are extremely optimistic going into this season. Senior and returning player Jake Dowell explained, “I believe our team will do amazing this year! There’s so many upsides to obtaining new members, one of the best being gaining new skill sets, and new ways to think about strategy.”
Currently, the Cavalry is playing two main video games, including Valorant and League of Legends, with active teams for both. Even though it's early in the season, the team already has two consecutive wins with some main participants being seniors Ayden Pires, Jake Dowell, Conner Henard, and Nick Sultana.
Be sure to come out and support the Cavalry by watching their competition and game streams on their Twitch channel.