The St. Charles High esports team had a talented roster this year, with the players being Aaron Baxter, Nolan Day, Eli Miller, Charles Sheils and Eaken Vang. The team was led by Captain Cole Thiesfeld. Coach Alex Messina helped coach the boys to a well deserved victory. 

Messina’s love for gaming started a while ago, however it wasn’t until the esports team started where he learned about the competitive games the teams are playing. Although Messina loved everything this season, one of the best moments came from the freshmen.

“Honestly I’m very proud of my freshman…I’m very lucky, my captains are very good, my experienced players are very good, but I’m most pleased to see how are freshman have shifted from being complete goober messes in August to now.”

Emotions were running high throughout the state match and afterwards when the team was riding high on the fifth place win. “I was excited to be in the top 5 in the state,” Thiesfeld said. 

However, some said they were disappointed by placing fifth. “We all were displeased but we were okay with it,” Baxter said 

During the time leading up to the competition,  the team worked hard on several skills and played even harder. 

“Practicing communication” was one of the biggest challenges according to Thiesfeld.

Messina said the hardest challenge for him was staying positive. 

“It’s one thing if you lose by like 30… It’s another thing if we lost by a narrow margin, and that made it very tough for me to be like okay here’s the things we need to do.”

The best part of the game is different for everyone, when asked what his favorite part of the game was Thiesfeld said, “The competitive nature of it.” 

“I’m very glad last year we went to state twice for Smash, this year we went to state for Halo, I’m hoping every year we can get at least one team to state,” Messina stated.