League of Legends team starts CIF PlayVS season undefeated

November 2, 2020

Image used with permission from Sunny Hills High School eSports team.

The Sunny Hills League of Legends eSports team defeats Menlo High School’s Red team’s third dragon in a Tuesday CIF match.

In a 2-0 victory, the Sunny Hills eSports Lancers Gold team defeated Menlo High School’s Red team on Oct. 27 in the second match of the California Interscholastic Federation PlayVS Fall League of Legends season.

“We’ve been really grateful for the team’s success these past couple of years, and a lot of it comes from our amazing players and how well they all work together,” head coach Casey McDonald said. “We definitely try to maintain good morale for all our games whether we win or lose.”

Attack damage carry player senior Soonchang Kwon obtained kills early into the first game to pick up an early kill lead that Lancer Gold (2-0) never surrendered.

Menlo Red wouldn’t let Lancer Gold go easy though, as the Lancers’ opponents directed an attack toward Sunny Hills’ top-laner, senior Erik Kim, toward the end of the match.

“My team and I had communicated beforehand that we would respond with a counter-attack if the Menlo team snuck up on Erik,” jungler junior Cole Sass said. “We were able to perfectly combine our team’s abilities together and ace the enemy team, which allowed us to seal out the first game with a win.”

The matches are available for viewing for 14 days after the livestream ends. Afterwards, they will be saved as highlight videos, viewable at any time. The rest of the season streams every Tuesday at 4 p.m. on twitch.tv/shhs_esportsclub/videos.

The Lancers next take on a team yet to be determined at 4 p.m. on Nov. 3.

“These games just remind me that we would never have come this far without the help of our coach, who my team and I love and support,” Kim said. “We look forward to these next series of tournaments and what they have in store for us.”

The Sunny Hills eSports Lancer Gold team won a stash of prizes — including a $2,000 Alienware m15 laptop — after going undefeated and taking the PlayVs Summer Showdown title.

The Sept. 4-12 tournament featured five teams and this was the first time the SH team competed.

Besides the laptop, the grand prize also included a Respawn gaming chair worth $187, an Alienware m15 laptop worth $2,000 and Logitech G PRO X Wireless Headsets worth $200, said head coach Casey McDonald.

“I went into every game with a confident mentality,” Kim said. “Once you win a game in a tournament you just have better morale but we still try to keep in mind the possibility of losing, so we’re always trying hard in the game.”

This story originally appeared in the Oct. 30 print issue, which can be read here.