League of Legends played a record season — online
MEMBERS OF THE eSports team are, upper row (left to right): Timothy Song (student activities coordinator intern), Dale Lee, Jonathan Park, Jovanni Perez. Bottom row: Christopher Tan, David Fabian, Jungho Hwang. Game director Randy Chinchilla is not pictured.
The New Covenant Academy’s (NCA) eSports team had a huge success fighting battles and having other adventures digitally to bring home a record win in the 2021 season.
The school’s League of Legends high school players finished 12-2 and placed fourth in the state out of 118 participating schools. NCA is located at 3119 W. Sixth St.
In the first round, NCA soundly defeated Da Vinci Charter Academy from Davis, 2-1, and moved on to the next round of 16. However, NCA lost 2-1 to Vistamar School in El Segundo Dec. 2.
CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) adopted eSports two years ago, and the Federation has partnered with PlayVS to allow its teams to compete in three different games: League of Legends, Smite and Rocket League.
Principal Jason Song added, “More students are playing games at home due to the pandemic. The danger of computer gaming is addiction, conflict with parents at home and disengagement from school work / activities.
“What we’re doing at NCA, under CIF’s initiative, is to actually utilize school-based team games to promote healthy competition, teamwork and even academic success. We have coaches who work closely with our students at our own high-tech computing facility, and we require our players to maintain a 3.3 GPA in core courses to be eligible.
“Moreover, we have seen a positive impact on our players.”
E-SPORTS can promote healthy competition, Principal Jason Song says. Pictured is player Dale Lee.
NCA plans on expanding the eSports experience to its middle school students as well as adding the other games when demand warrants, a school spokesperson said.
Category: Entertainment
