Danville, KY - Centre Esports spent much of the last several days inside NECC competition against quality opponents. Here's how the Colonels fared:

NECC Project III Tournament (Rocket League) - 3rd Place Finish
Centre vs St. Lawrence (2/21/26): Win 3-1 (9-1, 2-3, 2-1, 3-1)
Centre vs Mount Union (2/21/26): Loss 3-0 (1-2, 0-6, 0-1)
Centre vs Widener (2/21/26): 3-0 Forfeit Win
Centre vs St. Lawrence (2/22/26): Win 4-1 (3-1, 0-2, 4-0, 3-2, 6-0)
Centre vs Carthage (2/22/26): Loss 4-2 (3-2, 2-1, 1-6, 1-2, 0-2, 2-3)
Over the weekend, Centre Rocket League competed in the inaugural NECC Project III Tournament--An invitational for NECC members who are also NCAA Division III colleges. The format was double elimination with Best of 5 matches on day 1 and Best of 7 on day two. The Colonels went in as the #6 seed out of 9 total entrants meaning they needed to pull off some upset wins to secure their third place finish. This mainly came in the form of #3 seed St.Lawrence who the Colonels bested twice in both the upper and lower bracket. In the second round, Centre took on tournament winners Mount Union. Their roster contained 3 SSL players (the highest rank in the game). A forfeit from Widener secured Centre's spot in day two of competition. After another fairly dominant series over St. Lawrence, Centre made it to losers finals to play Carthage. Despite two early round wins and an extremely close game 6, Centre was not able to pull off this additional upset. You can watch replays of the games on Centre's twitch like normal except for this last round which was streamed by Coe College instead.

Centre's other teams were also in action in the last week.

League of Legends vs Converse (2/22/26): Loss 2-0
Centre went up against Converse University, the #1 seed, in a short game, revealing some of the weaker points in Centre's composition. In the first match, Centre chose a tank-focused comp while Converse chose a burst/poke comp. This comp was most likely not their first choice; Converse banned some of Centre's best picks, forcing Centre into some uncomfortable positions. Centre's struggle became apparent within the first five minutes of the match, falling behind quickly in kill and gold count. After losing the first match, Centre shifted gears to a more poke focused comp, while converse switched to have more of a tank value. Centre's change in tactics was fruitless, as they struggled the same as they did in the first match. This was a rough game for Centre, but some good could come of it. This showed how reliant they had become on running certain characters in their comps, such as Seraphine. It will take time, but there may be a further diversification of Centre's character options needed.

Valorant vs Florida State University Panama City (2/22/26): Win 2-1 (13-10, 4-13, 13-10)
Centre Valorant continued its win streak in a great series over FSUPC. The Colonels started off strong with meowmeowmeowmeow (Aaron Klein) getting a 4K in the first round. FSUPC adapted to some of Centre's strategies and gave the colonels a hard time coming back to a score of 10 - 8 and up by two points. Nearing match point, Centre fought back with Klippy (Vedant Bhagat) clutching up a 1v3 to give the team the momentum they needed. After that, Centre dominated the field getting 5 rounds back to back and winning the first map with a score of 13 - 10. The second map, Haven, came as an uphill battle for Centre who were perhaps unprepared for some of the quiks of the 3-sited map. FSUPC snatched the opportunity to get ahead and found a good lead in the first half--no letting Centre build momentum. With the score tied 1 - 1, Bind would be the deciding game. As game 3 started, Centre did not made adjustments from the previous round and took the lead with overwhelming force to start of strong with a score of 5 - 0 with some incredible 3ks from Sam (Sam Stephenson). But with FSUPC fighting back, they did not let Centre get an easy win. In the later half, they came back making the score 9 - 10. After a smart Centre timeout, the Colonels composed themselves and gave FSUPC little time to adapt to their new concpcted strategies. Centre claimed the final 4 rounds and thus the series.

Marvel Rivals vs Hood College (2/24/26): Loss 3-1
The first objective of Round 1 had the Hood College Blazers open with what would be their go-to composition for the entire series: three Strategists, two Vanguards, and a lone Duelist. The Colonels continued with their standard 2-2-2 composition. With The Blazers providing opening pressure to secure 30% of the objective, StarGarden (Leif Becker) got three picks to flip the objective in Centre's favor. Unfortunately, Hood College was able to utilize their ultimates more effectively than The Colonels, securing the first objective of Round 1. The second objective saw swaps from both teams with the favor swinging to Centre with Powers (Caleb Pelanne) providing pressure with his Venom to secure the opening elimination. After Centre secured just over half of the objective, Hood College was able to use their ultimates first to gain control over the objective. When all hope looked lost for The Colonels, BigSoup (Blake Shrewsberry) teleported to the point and provided much needed assistance to StarGarden and Powers holding it down. After over a minute of overtime, Centre reclaimed the objective but The Blazers were able to reclaim and ultimately win Round 1.

Round 2 allowed JayFreak (Justin Lewis) to pull out his trump card in Gambit. The high healing and fast paced gameplay that he allows created an opening for Centre to charge ults quickly and secure the objective. Now on the payload phase of Round 2, Centre constantly pushed forward not letting Hood College catch the breath and very quickly secured the first checkpoint. Once Centre got to the very end of the final push, Hood College was able to have the ultimate advantage, stopping Centre's momentum and preventing them from pushing all of the way. Now on defense, The Colonels sustained too much frontline pressure causing them to immediately lose the objective. Centre did gain a bit of momentum back, stalling a minute off of The Blazers time, but Hood College was able to utilize their ultimates better and regain their momentum to secure the first checkpoint. The Colonels and The Blazers were locked in a stalemate for over a minute and a half over the final checkpoint, but The Blazers swapped to provide pressure to The Colonels' back line, allowing them to secure the final checkpoint and win Round 2.

To begin Round 3, n0g (Nate Hall) returned from orchestra practice and took over the role of Vanguard from BigSoup. Hood College came out swinging, showing no mercy to Centre's new lineup, almost immediately securing the first checkpoint. That was where the momentum would stop for The Blazers as SkelloJello (Lucas Poynter) placed an ultimate to disrupt their back line and give Centre control of the objective. Getting a bit too greedy, Centre lost some key players early on in the next fight but The Colonels were still able to stall for just about a minute before Hood College secured the second checkpoint and immediately gained over half of the progress using their ults well. The Colonels with ults of their own came back to stop their progression just a handful of meters from the end with just over a minute left to prepare for a final fight that never really happens. The Colonels positioned themselves very well to deny Hood College the chance to touch the objective. Now on the attack, Powers was able to charge his ultimate in 40 seconds and send Hood College immediately back to their spawn, deny the touch of the objective, and let The Colonels secure the first checkpoint. The second checkpoint saw ultimate after ultimate from both teams, but Centre's Strategists were able to sustain the team through it all and secure the second checkpoint. An amazing combination of ultimates from JayFreak and StarGarden allowed Centre to push right up to the edge of the finishing line and, by the time the fight ended and it was time for the final fight, they both had their ultimates again. A massive 3-player ultimate from n0g created the opening The Colonels needed to push the objective and take the win in Round 3.

Round 4, back onto domination, Hood College brought out a composition of characters designed to disrupt Centre's backline. For the first two minutes of play, neither team owned the objective with a prolonged fight occurring until The Blazers were able to secure the objective after some well timed ultimates. Centre, solely with the use of StarGarden's ultimate, was able to flip the objective in their favor along with staggering two of Hood College's Strategists. The pressure onto the backline ended up being too demanding for The Colonels as The Balzers would recapture the objective and win the first objective after a very long stall from Centre. The second objective was an objective of ultimates. Centre was able to utilize the swaps they made to charge their ultimates faster after Hood College captured two thirds of the objective. The Colonels maintained their control until 99% when The Blazers were able to recapture the objective utilizing their Strategist ultimates. After a long stall and many ultimates from both sides, Hood College won the second objective of the round and won Round 4 making the series 1-3 in favor of Hood College.

After a strong showing in the NECC Project III Tournament, Rocket League capped off the short week with a dominant 4-0 win over the University of Tennessee. Game one opened strong with 4 quick unanswered goals from Centre before slowing down in the second half. ACKess (Adam Kessinger) stood out--finding 2 goals, 2 saves, and 5 shot attempts. UTK increased the pressure in game two. The colonels defended well before letting one slip through at the 2 minute mark. A combo of Sush (Grant Walker) and K2Winterpath (Charles McGuin) tied things up. With the game almost certainly going to overtime, K2Winterpath found a beautiful goal over two UTK defenders with 0 seconds left on the clock. In Game 3, ACKess scored only 8 seconds in off a great kickoff from K2Winterpath. The two teamed up for another one around the 3 minute mark, but Tennessee found 2 themselves to tie things. With only 20 second left, bit teams find another goal to send things to overtime where Sush secured the round. In the final round Sush started things off with an extremely flashy play—rolling on his back and flipping last minute with a pass into himself. UTK managed to tie things up, but the Colonels found 3 more goals in response to take the game and the series. With this week of competition concluding, Centre RL finds itself the only undefeated team in the conference.

The coming weekend and early March will have the Colonels in a lot of action. Stay tuned to centrecolonels.com for all the latest.