The Esports curriculum at Penn-Trafford High School was established less than two years ago, and already, teacher John Carlisle has some reigning champions among his students.
Esports is a type of competition that revolves around video games, particularly the type with multiple players battling their opponents and reliant upon strategy. Mr. Carlisle covers game strategy and tactics across the different esports in his class of 20 students.
On Saturday, December 11, the Penn-Trafford Esports teams competed at Saint Francis University (Loretto, PA) in the High School Championships to wrap up the fall season which began in September. The event was sponsored by The Esport Company, and drew about a dozen of the top-ranking teams in Pennsylvania. Saint Francis has a Division 1 Collegiate Esports team, and all of the high school students were excited to compete at the state-of-the-art facility.
Each of Penn-Trafford’s three teams was seeded in first place in its division going into the competition.
The PT Division 2 Rocket League team of Jason Pernick, Vincent Patalski, and AJ Visco overcame being down 2 games to 1 to win their championship 4 games to 2 over Forest Hills (which has a player that is ranked top 250 in the United States).
In Division 1, Penn-Trafford’s Dylan Holmes, Rye McWilliams, and Nick Sandrock defeated Bishop Carroll High School 4 games to 2 to capture the championship.
The third Penn-Trafford team, Emily Truong, Brayden Seech, AJ Slack, Connor Adomaitis, and Skyler Hado defeated Conrad Weiser High School 2 games to 0 for the championship in the Valorant division.
These wins mark the first Esport championships in school history. Multiple players from PT have been offered scholarships to continue to compete in Rocket League after high school.