The Esports smashers were working really hard these past couple of months preparing to make it to the state finals. And the hard work paid off, because they made it to state finals. Saturday, May 7 the smash crew competed at the St. Louis Science center and they were pitted against the top teams from the entire state. They were excited to compete against them, especially student Joshua Viveros. 

“All I know is that it felt good making it to the finals. Sure we eventually lost,  but that showed how we still have room for improvement,” Viveros said. “Overall it was pretty fun and it was a great experience.” 

After the smashers didn’t make it to the state last semester,  they revised their plan on how to get better for next time and they were pretty prepared this time. Smash varsity captain Shane Bucher changed and improved how they can do better. 

“We practiced each day after school, went to tournaments and played some outside of school,” Bucher said. 

Also the co-captain Max Locke was pretty impressed as well with the amount of progress they made throughout the year and how much they have practiced. 

“We practice every day, and some players put in a lot of time outside of esports. It was pretty cool to see the improvements over the year,” Locke said.  

Even though the team lost to the top schools around the state everyone had an amazing time playing at the arena. 

“I was pretty excited, we got to play smash in the omnimax which was so fun and a great experience and got to play in the legendary trex room,” Bucher said. 

Max was more surprised on how they beat Marquette and St. Louis University High School

“We did better than I expected. We were really close to making two big upsets by beating the teams that got second and third. It was awesome playing at such a big event and meeting all of those people,” Locke said.

With the seniors in the smash team leaving this year and some quitting for many reasons, the esports team hopes that they can get the next set of really good pirate players to the team and have a successful year as well.