WILKES-BARRE, PA (December 9, 2022) -- As the Fall 2022 semester comes to a close at King's College, the King's Esports League of Legends and Overwatch teams brought great honor and recognition to the College as both titles captured the program's first ever championships this past week in the NECC finals. In just their third year as a program, the Monarchs' Esports program has evolved tremendously to earn recognition as a top-level collegiate Esports program.

On Wednesday night, the League of Legends team, led by captain Parker Gonzales, capped off its fall 2022 season with a 10-1 overall record as they won the Navigators Mideast Division Championship over Ashland University. The two teams had faced each other earlier this season with the first matchup in favor of the Monarchs, 2-1. The League of Legends NECC finals was a best of five, winner takes all series with Ashland. In the opening game, King's lost due to a poor draft. Game two saw King's come out on top to tie up the series with a better draft and an early lead. Ashland claimed the third game in the series after jumping out to an early lead.

After game three, King's took a strategic break to strategize and retain morale. In the fourth game, the Monarchs made somewhat radical changes to their draft and strategy, opting for a more early game team composition. This enabled King's to win the game and tie the match at two games a piece. In the final game of the series, King's players were confident but made sure to understand it is not over until it is over, and the Monarchs captured the final game and the title due to increased team communication and coordination. After a long night King's Esports won its first trophy in the program's history and went home with a pride of representing their school.

Following a thrilling Wednesday night championship match, the King's Overwatch team looked to claim the second championship trophy in as many days. King's Overwatch concluded their fall season with a 10-2 overall record in the Emergents Northeast Division and were also led by team captain Parker Gonzales. The Overwatch NECC finals was a best of seven, winner takes all against College of the Holy Cross. King's entered the tournament as the first seed, while Holy Cross was the seventh seed. In game one, King's lost due to team composition and play style differences. Before game two, the Monarchs regrouped and talked collectively about what characters they should run to counter Holy Cross. The second game resulted in King's winning due to better team coordination and hero ability usage. The Monarchs would carry this momentum into games three and four as King's won due to having a team composition that Holy Cross did not seem to have an answer for.

With the series on the line, Holy Cross came out with an unseen team composition and play style to capture game five. Game six saw King's and Holy Cross in a highly competitive game that went into overtime which unfortunately ended with Holy Cross winning and tying the series to force the winner-takes-all game seven.

As fate would have it, the final map in the Overwatch championship series was named "King's Row." Before game seven was set to begin, King's decided to switch their players' roles around in an attempt to counter Holy Cross. This decision to switch players in the last game gave Holy Cross a problem they could not seem to solve. Game seven ended with the Monarchs coming out on top to bring home the Emergents Northeast Division Championship title. Throughout the series, players competed the best they had all season along with everyone on the team working together to keep morale and coordination at its peak performance.

Both programs saw great success this past fall, due in large part to team captain Parker Gonzales who led both programs to their championship titles. The League of Legends squad saw Krisjin Bilwin and Micah Plummer named team Most Valuable Players this season, while the Overwatch crew saw Jesse Lutz earn team Most Valuable Player.