Danville, KY - This week kicked off postseason competition in both the NECC and Peach Belt Conference for Centre Esports. It included a thrilling conference title win in Valorant and exciting semifinals for Rocket League. Here is how the Colonels fared:

PBC Semifinals: Valorant vs North Georgia (3/29/26): Win 2-0 (Forfeit)
With only 3 total opponents in the Champions division this year, the winner of this match qualifies to take on #1 seed FSUPC in the Championship in Georgia. Only a day before, UNG unexpectedly forfeited for an unknown reason. An anticlimactic Semifinals match, but a win for Centre nontheless. With this, Centre advanced to the Championship which was played Saturday afternoon live in Georgia. Entering the final, Centre's record with FSUPC stood at 1-2 so anyone would come out on top in this Bo5 Championship hosted by Kennesaw State.

NECC Quarterfinals: Rocket League vs South Carolina (Black) (3/30/26): Win 4-2 (3-0, 2-0, 7-0, 2-3, 2-3, 4-2)
In game 1, the Colonels picked up three strong goals and while defending several attempts from USC. K2Winterpath found 2 of the goals while Sush (Grant Walker) and ACKess (Adam Kessinger) were credited with 7 total saves.

Game 2 started off with a beautiful fake from Sush and ACKess. ACKess continued his dominance with an additional goal, 5 saves, and 4 shot attempts.
In game 3, the Colonels racked up a whopping 7 unanswered goals. The first of these came only 8 seconds in from ACKess. Centre's player scored 2-3 goals each and made a combined total of 16 shot attempts.

In game 4, at match point, with the season on the line, USC answered back and found the first goal. Centre found 2 goals of their own to take the lead, but USC found one more near the end to force overtime where they found they took the game 49 seconds in. ACKess once again looked like the MVP with 5 saves and both of Centre's goals.

Game 5 went similarly with USC finding the first goal and then the second. K2Winterpath and Sush managed to tie things up to force another overtime where USC again scored after 2:42 of intense back and forth as both teams played more conservatively.

Game 6 was still close but saw a return to form for Centre to close the match out. Around 2 minutes in, both teams had tied 2-2. Sush gave Centre their lead back by maneuvering quickly off a kickoff and finding a precise angle and K2Winterpath found the final goal of the series—building Centre a lead that USC could not overcome despite several great looking attempts. With that, the Colonels defeated the #4 seed from the other half of the conference and advanced to play Warner University in the semifinals.

PBC Quarterfinals: League of Legends vs Augusta (4/3/26): Loss 2-0
This match was played live at Kennesaw State. In game one, with picks like seraphine, Mel, and Mordekaiser being banned by Augusta, Centre played Urgot, Jarvin IV, Varus, Lux, and Nami. A first blood was scored by MetroMina (Mina Hartman) and orbiterpluto (Nick Minton) in the bot lane which allowed them to gain a slight early gold advantage, but a gank around the 5 minute mark evened it back out. The colonels picked up a dragon buff and voidgrubs, but lost fights in top and bottom lane. The first major team fight came at the 11 minute mark where esteramu (Gabriel Habeeb) picked up a kill and let the Colonels take a second dragon. Things continued evenly for some time with picks being traded. Teamfights at 16:30 and 22:00 are where AU firmly gained momentum and an unfavorable fight at 28:10 cemented the lead. AU picked up Baron buff, but the colonels found four major shutdowns with Lumberjack (JT Taylor) doing a lot of the hard work. Ultimately, this only slowed AU's victory down.

In game two, Centre was faced with similar bans and drafted Smolder, Ornn, Sejuani, Rumble, Smolder, and Milio. The pace was a little faster, but with similar scorelines. A very close fight in bot lane around 6:45 and 2v2 in mid both unfortunately went AU's way letting them build a gold advantage and claim additional objectives. Much like game one, Centre was not shutout from scoring kills especially thanks to big damage from esteramu, but they could not outpace Augusta. For a glimmer of hope, orbiterpluto scored a big shutdown around 20:30, but would have preferred the benefits of this kill go to a higher damage teammate and esteramu found a kill onto AU's ADC. Unfortunately, Centre could not find any elims in the next teamfight which allowed AU to claim Baron and snowball to victory. With that, Centre's LoL season has come to a close.

Being promoted to the Masters division for the first time naturally came with some challenges, but Centre LoL rose to the occasion to find 2 upset wins and take rounds off two other opponents.

PBC Championship: Valorant vs Florida State University Panama City (4/4/26): Win 3-1 (13-9, 13-6, 9-13, 13-9)
Centre took down top-seed FSUPC to capture the PBC Valorant Championship. Full Recap: https://centrecolonels.com/news/2026/4/4/esports-claims-pbc-valorant-championship.aspx

NECC Semifinals: Rocket League vs Warner (4/8/26): Win 4-3 (2-3, 3-2, 2-0, 2-1, 3-5, 0-1, 3-2)
Warner found an early lead in game 1. With 7 seconds left and down 3 goals, ACKess (Adam Kessinger miraculously found two goals, but did not have enough time to catch up.

Carrying his momentum into game two, ACKess found Centre an early goal with Sush following up for a second. ACKess found a third one in the first minute to cement their lead despite 2 goals from Warner.

Game 3 began slower, but K2Winterpath (Charles McGuin) and Sush found two while ACKess ensured Warner was shutout on defense.

Warner found the lead once again in game 4 with an extremely tricky double tap to stuff the top right corner of goal. With a 1:30 left Sush tapped one in with great passes from both teammates. With no more scored, teams entered overtime where K2Winterpath found the final goal off a calculated set up from Sush and ACKess.

Game 5 started off with another great team play from Centre with a demo and a pass opening an opportunity for ACKess. Warner answered back with two of their own, but were matched by Sush. Tied at the halfway point though, Warner found 3 more which Centre could not overcome.

Footage from game 6 does not exist due to a technical error, but the stat board showed a defense heavy game from Centre. Despite several saves, one was let through allowing Warner to tie the series 3-3 for an exciting game 7 conclusion.

With the season on the line for both team, Warner found 2 goals in the first half making things look dire for Centre. An incredible and unexpected hat trick of late game goals from K2Winterpath saved the day. Written words cannot do this moment justice so please check out the clips below:

https://www.twitch.tv/centre_esports/clip/CalmIncredulousMagpieDoubleRainbow-CP81mdFzq4F25pWh
https://www.twitch.tv/centre_esports/clip/TsundereExcitedDuckShazBotstix-4DfukQgmpHUvzTEW
https://www.twitch.tv/centre_esports/clip/SuspiciousClumsyMangetoutDoubleRainbow-CtHIkNF0AT16pOCW
https://www.twitch.tv/centre_esports/clip/BreakableAverageMelonHassaanChop-TVk1pT72owAKs2Kt

With that, Centre RL advances to the NECC Div V Championship match and maintains their undefeated streak. They will face off against UNA Purple, the #1 seed from the other half of the conference on Wednesday, April 15th. You won't want to miss it!