10/19/23

SCRANTON, Pa. -- The Esports Valorant squad fell 2-1 (13-7, 6-13, 13-2) to Northwest Florida State College on Thursday night in NJCAAE action.
 
The Falcons had an up-and-down performance, battling hard in the back half of map one, stealing a win with an impressive map two showing, but then dropping the third map in a blowout loss.
 
The first map was on Bind, and the Falcons managed to take the first round, and had things close at 4-2, before a five-round run from the Raiders made it 9-2, The NW Florida lead was 10-3 when both teams switched and the Falcons went to attack. The Raiders made it 11-3, before Lackawanna started to make a bit of a run, grabbing a pair of rounds to close to 11-5. Another NW Florida win put it to match point on the first map, but the Falcons managed a pair of wins before bowing 13-7 in the first.
 
The next map was Split, and the Falcons started on defense once again. Lackawanna won the first round, much like it did on map one, but there was an air of confidence from the Falcons on this map, as Lackawanna extended a tight 5-4 lead to an 8-4 advantage heading into the attack/defense switch. Now on attack, and needing five victories for the map win, Lackawanna won the final four points of the map to take it 13-6 and tie things up on the evening.
 
The third and final map was Ascent, and NW Florida came out firing, winning the first two points with "flawless" wins, eliminating all five Falcons opponents without losing one of their own. That put Lackawanna on the back foot, and the Falcons fell further behind while on attack in the first half of the map, with the Raiders running off the first seven rounds in a row. Lackawanna broke that with a last-gasp one-on-one win to take round eight, then took round nine to get a little momentum. But, the gap was too great to overcome, and the Raiders got it to 11-2 before the switch, and won the remaining two rounds to complete a dominant 13-2 third round victory.
 
Valorant is back in action next Thursday evening against Onondaga CC at 7:00pm ET. Meanwhile, the next Esports squad in action is Rocket League, competing on Friday, October 20^th at 6:00pm ET against State Technical College of Missouri in NJCAAE play.