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The college eSports championships

The college eSports championships
Photo Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio, Sports and Wrestling. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!

This weekend, a first of its kind happened. The Collegiate eSports Championships were combined and held in one place, the George R Brown Convention Center during Comicpalooza. For those who don't understand what that means, there are numerous college programs across America that have gotten into competitive gaming as another scholarship avenue for it's students as well as another great fun thing to get involved with. Most of these games are produced by one major company, Blizzard Entertainment and one major sports broadcaster has gotten heavily involved in the eSports movement, ESPN and this weekend was the two of them working together.

Each of the five games had national events going on starting in January and were eventually down to a total of 22 teams from 20 schools competing in Hearthstone, Overwatch, Starcraft 2, Street Fighter V and Heroes of the Storm.

There were some interesting upsets in some of the events, in the Overwatch event which follows the same scoring and formatting as the Overwatch League Blizzard has created so it's first to 3 match points wins the game, Harrisburg and Utah were equal seeds from opposite sides of the bracket but are vastly different programs. University of Utah has a full eSports program with coaching and school sponsored equipment while Harrisburg is a student funded club that entered the tournament. Another interesting facet of that match was that Utah played a very traditional, what's called tank or camp style where they play the choke points on a map and lay down heavy fire from big slow characters and force the opponent to grind through those killing fields, where as Harrisburg was playing a very unique style. They were specifically running tons of damage inducing, but low health characters that are fast and agile but not built for long protracted grindout battles. It's like if a ninja was fighting a dinosaur, one good hit from the dinosaur and the fights over but maybe the ninja can win, and that's what happened with Harrisburg actually overcoming an early deficit to win the championship.

Starcraft 2 had some interesting moments as well, as this was the only event to feature the fabled and storied UC Berkeley program. They are a legend in the college eSports program as they have long put money and focus into their efforts. Starcraft 2 is a fascinating game to watch happen because there is tons of data to process and decisions to make on the fly, with elite players averaging 350+ interactions/decisions a minute. It's a best of seven series and the matches were great fun to watch and with UC Berkeley pulling out the win.

Hearthstone, Street Fighter V and Heroes of the Storm also lived up to the hype with Georgia Tech winning the Hearthstone championship, RNJIT winning Street Fighter V and Rutgers winning Heroes of the Storm.

ESPN was streaming these events live on twitch but will also package and broadcast the events on ESPN2 May 22nd 6pm central time, so definitely go check that out.

Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help fight cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio or support our Patreon Page. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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The Astros beat the Phillies, 2-1. Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images.

Cam Smith hit an RBI single in the eighth inning to give the Houston Astros a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday.

The rookie's second hit of the game came off Orion Kerkering (5-3) and gave the Astros their fourth straight win.

Brandon Marsh tied the game on a sacrifice fly in the top of the inning to end the Phillies' 26-inning scoreless streak.

The Astros took a 1-0 lead on Yainer Diaz’s RBI single in the second inning. They only managed three more hits off Phillies starter Christopher Sanchez, who struck out 11 with zero walks over six innings. Sanchez has not issued a walk in three straight starts.

Hunter Brown lowered his league best ERA to 1.74 by scattering three singles over seven shutout innings, with nine strikeouts. He did not allow a runner to reach second base.

Bryan Abreu (3-3) struck out Trea Turner to end the eighth, and then struck out Kyle Schwarber, Alec Bohm, and Nick Castellanos in the ninth.

Abreu joined Julia Morales after the game and talked about his impressive performance!

Rafael Marchán had two of the Phillies' four hits. Bryson Stott reached base twice and scored the Phillies' lone run.

Key moment

Smith’s RBI.

Key stat

Brown’s 1.74 ERA is the fourth best in Astros history through 16 starts and the best since Justin Verlander posted a 1.60 ERA through 16 starts in 2018.

Up next

The Astros open a three-game series against the Cubs on Friday with LHP Brandon Walter (0-1 3.80 ERA) on the mound.

The Phillies open a three-game series at the Braves on Friday with RHP Mick Abel (2-1 3.47 ERA) against Atlanta RHP Bryce Elder (2-4 4.77).

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