History was made last month on the pitch for West Liberty Comets athletics.
The virtual pitch.
In the inaugural season for the West Liberty High School esports team, the Comets made the state tournament in Marshalltown on Feb. 23 in Rocket League, a soccer-based competitive video game.
The Comets were led by Bryson Garcia, Rodrigo Fierro Perez and Oscar Hernandez. They entered the competition as the No. 8 seed, won a series in the consolation round against No. 5 Harlan and tied for fifth place in Division 2.
“The state tournament was an awesome experience for myself and the boys,” said West Liberty esports coordinator and coach Nick Frenz. “The setting felt like a professional esports competition and the venue was very impressive. The boys played great against tough competition.”
Rocket League is played three-on-three with users controlling mini-cars inside of a massive caged soccer pitch. Players control the cars to ram into a gigantic soccer ball and use teamwork to push the ball into their opponents’ goal and defend their own goal from oncoming attacks.
In the Comets’ match, they dove head-first into battle against undefeated No. 1 Forest City and managed to take one game in the best-of-five series — the first game Forest City lost all year.
The Comets lost the series 3-1 which dropped them into the consolation bracket where they earned a clean sweep against Harlan. That series win propelled them into a series against No. 3 Okoboji, which West Liberty lost 3-0.
“Sweeping (Harlan) was a great victory after a tough loss in the first round,” Frenz said. “All in all, it was a great experience and awesome to see how much esports has developed in the state of Iowa. All three of the boys who qualified return next year, so we hope to be back and improve on our finish.”
Ready, set, go
Esports, now a billion-dollar industry in the United States, is one of the fastest-growing sports entities in the world. Its reach is now stretching to the high school level.
Esports began spreading its roots in the Hawkeye State when the Iowa High School Esports Association, a teacher-led organization now with over 100 member schools, conducted its first season in 2020.
West Liberty discovered it last fall through a handful of interested students who pitched the idea of starting a team to the administration.
“At the beginning of last school year, we had a couple of students ask about an esports team,” Frenz said. “They asked our assistant principal (Andrew Genz) saying esports is a thing. They saw that there were other teams in Iowa and wondered what it would take to do that here.
“I overheard the conversation and got into (Genz’s) ear and said, ‘Hey, I’d be super interested in leading the way or being a part of the team that takes this on.’”
Frenz said that video games have played a large role in his life and that he, like many others, became more invested in esports after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down traditional sports.
While esports competitions are often played in person, the nature of its virtual component made the transition to online gameplay seamless and offered quarantined viewers a chance to watch competitive sports.
“When I was growing up, and going through high school, esports wasn’t necessarily an industry like it is today,” Frenz said. “I mention to my friends that I’m coaching an esports team. They all think it’s the coolest thing in the world. They’re always saying, ‘Why couldn’t we have had esports in high school?”
Obtaining interest from students in forming an esports team was the easy part. Next was all of the logistics behind getting it off the ground.
A group comprised of Frenz, Genz, activities director Adam Loria and technology director Brian Rance met multiple times to discuss what it would take to bring an esports team to West Liberty.
A primary hurdle was acquiring funding to purchase specific equipment required by the IAHSEA, such as gaming computers, monitors, keyboards and mice, to participate in the league.
“(Rance) worked hard on getting the funding,” Frenz said. “I’m not sure how he worked his ways, but he secured enough for six gaming computers in the business lab at the high school. From there, he also set up that lab. He set up all the computers and made them accessible for esports.”
“Once we had… the lab made in the school, then it fell on my shoulders to gauge who was interested, recruit some kids to come out for it and operate the team.”
Pressing play
The IAHSEA offers various titles for competition during in the fall, winter and spring seasons that generally follow the IHSAA and IGHSAU schedules for traditional sports.
Still ironing out some logistical details, West Liberty was not ready to field a team until this winter season.
When it was ready, it was allowed to choose just one sport to compete in, as new teams are placed in a probationary period when they join the league.
The first question was which game to play — Rocket League or Overwatch, an objective-based first-person shooter.
After being put to a vote by the students, Rocket League won out.
From there, West Liberty was placed into division two (of three, based on school size) and given a schedule filled with teams from all corners of Iowa.
“Week to week, you are playing different teams not just in your area,” Frenz said. “We are in West Liberty and we are playing teams from Clear Lake, Forest City, Okoboji, and Sheldon. We’d never have the opportunity to compete against those schools, but we’re doing it online.”
The turning point for the team came midway through the season when Garcia, Fierro Perez and Hernandez joined the squad.
“I convinced three kids that were a little skeptical about esports to come out for it because I had heard from a variety of people they were good at the game,” Frenz said.
In one of their first competitions, when the trio went up against West Delaware, they went up two games to zero in the series and were sitting in the driver’s seat for a sweep.
But the Hawks came storming back and tied the series at two, forcing a winner-take-all game five.
“In the fifth game, we on by one,” Frenz said. “It was exciting. It was intense.”
It was the start of a trend. Garcia, Fierro Perez and Hernandez did not lose a single match from that point until the state tournament.
Diving into the settings
This past season, as the kinks were ironed out, the West Liberty esports team only met twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays for practice, which were also the competition days.
“Eventually, we hope to establish it as a practice you are at every day and conducting it more like a sanctioned sport would,” Frenz said.
When it comes to coaching and strategy for Rocket League, the team discusses tips and tricks that can help. Rotations are particularly important as movement across the arena can be hectic and chaotic.
However, Frenz often takes a hands-off approach for one simple reason.
“Honestly, a lot of the kids are better than I am,” he said. “I am learning things from them. And they coach each other up. A lot of (my coaching) felt like supervision and making sure things don’t go haywire. It was more like, ‘He knows a lot, so let him talk about what he’s doing and what he’s looking for.”
More than just video games
The very first question on the IAHSEA’s website FAQ page touches on what might first come to mind for high school esports detractors: “Wait. Aren’t you just trying to get kids to play video games at school?”
It is a point Frenz acknowledges, but offers a different perspective.
“I like to view it as using something that tends to be viewed negatively as a catalyst for something positive,” he said. “We can turn this idea of video games being a distraction for classes into a reason for success in class.
“The students who initially asked about the esports team were not necessarily the best students. It’s a struggle for them to stay motivated. Esports is a way to lead into academic success. The academic eligibility rule applies to our esports team. We’re trying to run it like any other sport would. If you miss a day of school unexcused, you can’t practice and you can’t play. We are trying to get more buy-in and involvement with kids who struggle with those things.”
Ready up
Despite the success of the winter sports season, the Comets esports team is going on hiatus until the fall.
West Liberty and Frenz, who also coaches the golf team in the spring, still need to figure out the time commitments it will take to run a team for a full school year.
The team is scheduled to be back in the fall with the probationary period gone. Students will have the opportunity to compete in the IAHSEA’s fall games, including Rainbow Six Siege, Smite and Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
There will be more hurdles to jump over. But they are good problems for the esports team. Frenz said over 40 students have approached him over the past few months about the fall season.
“What we might run into is we will have way more students interested in esports than we’re able to account for,” he said. “So, after this year we’ve spent figuring things out, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board and do it again. That’s another reason for taking a break in the spring. We know we can do it. We just want to make it a bit smoother.”
Frenz says the key to building up the team going forward is, “First and foremost, let’s get the fall, winter and spring seasons done. From there, I think esports just takes off at West Liberty.”
For a team projected to grow rapidly, more computers and monitors will be needed.
Perhaps, the team will need a home base.
“Something (Rance) and I have discussed is, we are in the process of finalizing blueprints for a big athletic complex,” Frenz said. “We’d like to make a rec center. We think it would be cool to build a specific esports lab in the activities center. Then, we’d have our own dedicated space. We are already outgrowing our current space.”
With the significant interest in esports at West Liberty, and across the state, it might not be long before the IHSAA and IGHSAU get involved.
“(The IAHSEA) is conducting its own state tournaments. It has banners and trophies,” Frenz said. “When it comes to statewide, if the IAHSEA continues on the path it is on, I think the state has a hard time not sanctioning esports.”