On this past Saturday morning, the fourth annual ESports Egg Bowl took place. This is the online matchup between Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi, where the Dawgs took their third win over Ole Miss in the history of the matchup.
Austin Fortinberry, a senior kinesiology major from Summit, Mississippi, currently serves as the president of the Esports team. He shared the list of video games that was on Saturday’s itinerary of tournament-style play.
The two teams played Overwatch, League of Legends, Madden ’22, Rocket League, Valorant, CS:GO and Super Smash Bros.
All seven games are played, some more than once. The Bulldogs took the majority of the days’ wins, showing the skills of the team members, veteran and rookie alike.
The Bulldogs won the matchups for Overwatch, Madden ’22, Valorant, CS:GO and Super Smash Bros.
Fortinberry shared two players who stood out on Saturday and aided the team with wins in their particular matches: Doug Smith and Chris Trieu.
Doug Smith, a junior aerospace engineering major from Slidell, Louisiana, competed in Overwatch, the first game of the day. This is his second year on the team that is able to compete in the Egg Bowl, the “A” team.
He shared that the team practiced the day before, helping him feel more prepared for the matchup against Ole Miss. They went through the maps that they thought might be played during the “real thing”.
“I was told about the Esports organization through a friend and I was immediately interested,” Smith said.
Senior electrical engineering major Chris Trieu, from Biloxi, Mississippi, competed in the last match of the day.
The team ended the day with Super Smash Bros., and Trieu showed out by taking 11 out of the 15 team lives from Ole Miss before they took his three.
Trieu’s history with Super Smash Bros. started out mostly casual. He shared that he played at social gatherings, and people began to realize his skill and potential for competitive play.
He attended one of the team’s weekly summer tournaments, “Friday Night Fights,” where new members are often scouted.
“I actually did pretty well and made a name for myself,” Trieu said about his potential start with the team that night. “The people there were like, ‘You should compete with us,’ and they said, ‘You were pretty good,'”.
Since joining the team, Trieu has formed relationships with team members and has been able to see the community of Esports grow collegiately during his time with them.
“Esports will always be growing,” Trieu said. “To anyone out there that plays a certain game, try to find out if your school has a team and, you know, just try to get to know the people and you can always get better.”
Fortinberry said if there are any students who have an interest in joining the team, they can reach out to the email on the Esports page on Cowbell Connect or join the team’s Discord.
