By MTN Sports Reporter: Jayce Standrige
The newest eSports team at Middle Tennessee State University is already causing waves on the national stage.
The Splatoon team started up last semester and had a decent year for their inaugural season being in division 2.
This season, they had higher expectations to hit after placing 4th out of 96 teams in the country in a preseason tournament. However, they had no idea what was to come. On March 10th, they got the news they would be moving up to division 1.
“So once we got our placements in the stream, we all collectively knew that we had to step up our game,” said varsity player Hunter Howland. “Not only are we practicing more, but we're doing more scrimmages with other universities and doing more in-depth analysis of our games through video review.”
As of now, Division 1 doesn’t offer any scholarships or extra benefits other than the chance to play better teams along with being in the national spotlight for this season.
“The only benefit I can see is if you're winning in div 1, other people in the league will see it and you can get more recognition in the community,” said Howland
What’s next for this team as they progress through the season? Well they started their season with a 4-0 sweep against the University of Texas at Dallas. This weekend, both JV and Varsity will be traveling and competing in a invitational tournament hosted by Purdue University in Indiana.
“Personally, I think this is a very good event for both teams to be attending as we can gain. a lot of experience from fighting these teams at the LAN (Local Area Network). There will be challenging teams ahead for us there,” said Varsity team captain Brendon Gillis.
The teams are excited to be able to travel this weekend, something they wouldn't have been able to do in Division 2.