Branson High School has a room pulsing with red LED lights, the flicker of computer screens, the rapid clicking of keys, and the adrenaline rush of competition.
The school has begun official competition for the Branson High School Esports teams. The program was approved in January, tested in the Spring 2022 semester as a pilot program, before becoming an official competitive squad in the 2022-2023 school year.
“Our season is split into three different seasons,” Coach Brandon Shields told Branson Tri-Lakes News. “Right now we do solo Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Switch, and we do Rocket League and Overwatch. In the winter, we’ll be doing NHL23 and Halo Infinite, and then in Spring it’s League of Legends, Valorant, and 5 on 5 Super Smash Brothers.”
The teams compete in MOSEF, the Missouri Online Scholastic Esports Federation. The organization is separate from the Missouri State High School Activities Association, which oversees all other high school sports, but the two organizations are talking about ways to work together.
“Both groups feel that Esports don’t fit into the MSHSAA standards right now,” Shields said. “In two more years, there is supposed to be some sort of merger going to happen, where MOSEF keeps the rules and regulations for Esports, but is part of MSHSAA.”
Shields said their competitive region is the largest region in the state.
The 2022 Branson High School Overwatch varsity team.
“Our overall region is up to Plato and all the way down to Joplin,” Shields said.
Shields is one of three main Esports coaches. Shields is the gaming coach, Michael Gones is the program coach, and Miranda Ascone is the organizing coach. Shields and Gones are considered head coaches by the school, Ascone is an assistant coach. Gones focuses on the entire Esports program, Shields as a former Esports competitor focuses on coaching the gaming aspects, and Ascone focuses on student eligibility and overall well-being.
The team also has two volunteer specialist coaches for individual games. Parker Smith is the Rocket League specialist and Zach Davis is the Overwatch specialist.
The teams practice in a former computer lab on the High School’s third floor. The room is equipped with 24 PCs designed for gaming, three Nintendo Switch consoles, and a 2-PC setup for live streaming of the team’s competitions.
The Rocket League and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players practice and compete on Monday and Tuesday; Overwatch on Wednesday and Thursday; and on Fridays the lab is opened to open gaming as a club activity.
Rocket League is a cross between indoor soccer and a demolition derby. The players control rocket-powered cars to knock an oversized ball into a net like soccer, but the cars have various power-ups and other features which can be used against opponents. Overwatch is considered a “first person hero shooter” where each of the characters have specific characteristics used on a team of six to accomplish a team victory. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a fighting game involving almost 90 different characters, with different traits.
Rocket League has a varsity and two JV teams; in Smash three are three varsity and three JV; and in Overwatch there is a varsity and JV team.
The 2022 Branson High School Rocket League varsity team.
“We did tryouts but we will find a place for everyone,” Shields said. “We can have as many JV teams as we want. We don’t want to single anyone out; we don’t want to have anyone not be able to attend; we find a spot for everyone. That’s why we have 75 members in our first season.”
The varsity squads have captains; Austin Popovits is the captain for the Rocket League squad, and is joined on the three-man team by Zach Del Porto and Brandon Grabowski; Ashton Matthews is the captain for the Overwatch team, joined by Elijah Holford, Jacob Brown, Jack Presley, Josh Brown, and Christien Pleasants.
“As a kid I played Overwatch a lot,” Matthews said. “When they announced they would be playing it here, it was really exciting, because I enjoyed the game and a lot of these guys were my friends who I played the game with outside of school. Now, playing competitively with a team, it’s really different.”
Matthews said he also loves to play Minecraft, and considers it his favorite game.
The team competes on PCs, and Matthews and most of the squad said they usually do most of their gaming on PCs rather than on consoles like the Playstation or XBox.
Matthews said his role on the team is to be the “tank,” the heavily armored and weaponized characters who can push forward and create space for the team to move.
“If I go forward and push and create space and no one’s behind me, then I get killed and the other team takes the space,” Matthews said. “However, when the team gets behind me, we usually are able to march forward and win.”
Matthews said his favorite character was Reinhardt, a tank character with a rocket powered hammer.
While Esports at Branson is new, the field of Esports has been growing around the country in high schools over the past few years. Colleges in Missouri alone are offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to Esports players. State championships have been held at places like the St. Louis Science Center, which hosted last year’s Rocket League state championship.
The Branson Esports Team live streams their games on the Twitch website, at twitch.tv/bransonpiratesesports. They also list their upcoming competitions and results on Twitter at @BransonEsports.
