Columbia College Collegiate Rocket League advanced to the quarterfinals of the World Championship Friday at DreamHack in Dallas.
Rocket League is a vehicular soccer video game. The world championship tournament consists of “three versus three” style play, with games lasting five minutes.
In the first round of group play, Columbia College defeated Germany’s Hamburg University in four games out of a “best of five” series. Columbia swept England’s Keele University in three games to finish group play and advance to the quarterfinal round.
Sixteen teams are competing in the championship tournament. Hamburg and Keele are part of a group of six teams representing European universities, while the other ten teams are from American institutions.
Columbia earned a spot in the world championship amid a remarkable 2022 spring season. In Columbia’s western league, it went undefeated through 15 series, losing only five individual games.
Its regular season performance clinched berths to not only the world championship, but also the North American Championship, which happened in May.
After losing in the first round at the NA Championship, it was dropped to the lower bracket. From there, it didn’t lose another series until the finals, when Northwood University defeated Columbia to become the tournament winners.
Less than one month later at the world championship tournament, Columbia could get its revenge against Northwood.
After securing a spot in the quarterfinals, Columbia College’s Kai Hickey, better known by his screen name “CosmicFlippy” said “It’s time for someone to take the champs (Northwood) down.”
Hickey is representing Columbia with his two teammates Cameron Barker (cam.) and Ethan Platt (Cryptic).
Columbia, along with Northwood, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Central Florida, emerged from their groups of four to clinch spots in the quarterfinals.
Columbia plays its quarterfinal series Sunday at 1 p.m. against either Oakland, Stockton or Berlin. All games moving forward will be streamed on the official Rocket League Twitch channel.
