Northwestern Participates in E-sports Pilot Season
By Jensyn Siebrecht
With the South Dakota High School Activities Association sanctioning E-sports, and students eager to play video games, Northwestern School made the move to participate in the pilot season this year. Run by Fenworks, South Dakota has 20 schools participating in the inaugural E-sports season.
Northwestern students participating in E-sports include seniors Dustin Dirksen, Natasha Kaderabek, Dylan Hahler, Angelina Molina, and Johnathan Thelen, juniors Annie Dvorak and Zane Sandquist, sophomores Shelbey Fortin, Tristan Nickeson, and Gavin Miller, and freshman Rayden Ratigan. Two staff members volunteered this year to serve as general managers: Mrs. Jennifer Schell and Mrs. Shelley Fischbach.
“We surveyed the students last spring and had a lot of interest. Most of our students spend a lot of time playing video games! One of the things that’s great about E-sports is that it gives students who may not necessarily be playing basketball or other sports an opportunity to compete on a team,” athletic director Nora Groft said. E-sports students are held to the same eligibility standards as other athletes and school activities.
“Of course, we couldn’t have offered this without Mrs. Schell and Mrs. Fischbach selflessly giving up their time, unpaid, so our kids can have this experience,” Groft said. “They jumped in with both feet and just figured it out.”
The team also received a generous $2,000 donation from Northern Valley Communications to help get the program off the ground.
Students have practice or games in the computer lab after school.
For its first season, Northwestern E-Sports has a tied season with 3 wins and 3 losses with 2 more competitions left. There will be a postseason in Brookings; however, the qualification and timing of that event is still unknown.
For the first year, the team is only playing two games: League of Legends and Chess. However, next year, they would love to add Smash and Rocket League if the school can get enough of the equipment required to play it.
Those participating enjoy playing this new activity at school.
“I started playing chess my sophomore year, and the fact that I can compete for my school is really cool,” senior Dustin Dirksen said.
“There’s people I talk to who I’m really good friends with and playing games with them is really fun, and there’s really good teamwork, which makes the games more fun,” sophomore Shelbey Fortin said.