Esports 3/7/2025 9:09:00 PM

Blinn Valorant goes toe-to-toe with tough NEO but comes up short in best-of-three CVAL series

The Buccaneers take on MSU-Mankato in a NACE Valorant match March 12

Esports 3/7/2025 9:09:00 PM

Blinn Valorant goes toe-to-toe with tough NEO but comes up short in best-of-three CVAL series

The Buccaneers take on MSU-Mankato in a NACE Valorant match March 12

The Blinn College esports Valorant team rolled to a first-round win over Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College on Thursday, but the Buccaneers ultimately could not capitalize on their momentum in a 2-1 loss to the Golden Norsemen.

Blinn's setback in the best-of-three Collegiate Valorant (CVAL) series dropped the Bucs to 5-3 in CVAL play.

Competing for Blinn were Zachary Sutton, Braeden Greiffenstein, Brendan Felicidario, Hector Carielo, and Ilies Dolliazal.

Valorant is a tactical, team-based, first-person shooter set in a near-future world. Teams of five players choose unique agents with distinct abilities, combining shooting skills with strategic use of each agent's toolkit. Teams alternate between attacking and defending. Attackers aim to plant a spike at one of the designated sites, while defenders try to prevent this or defuse the spike if planted. The first team to win 13 rounds claims victory. If both teams reach a tie at 12-12, overtime is triggered, and the match continues until one team wins by two rounds, with teams alternating between attacking and defending in each overtime round.

The Bucs won the opening round 13-7 before falling 13-4 in round two and 13-7 in the finale.

"We started with a dominant first-round win thanks to high energy and everyone being on the same page," Blinn assistant coach and Valorant manager Ryan Lucich said. "Map two started off relatively well before NEO began to take some momentum, and we weren't quite able to claw our way back. Map three had a lot of really close rounds that just always seemed to go NEO's way. This was still a great showing with us taking a map off of an undefeated team, and I think everyone agreed that we would be nowhere close to contesting a team like this at the beginning of the semester. We'll continue to put in the work to hopefully earn a rematch come playoff time."

Up next, Blinn Valorant battles Minnesota State University-Mankato in a National Association of College Esports match at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 12.

Blinn has competed in intercollegiate athletics since 1903 and captured 49 national championships since 1987.

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