The University of Akron defeated Humber 4-3 in a best-of-seven Midwest A, National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC) Rocket League Division three matchup.
Coach Eric “Rice” Buchyns said post-game he was happy with his team's showing and some of the individual plays they made during the match. They could give the squad a boost for future matches.
“Especially the individual plays. I saw, I got a lot of clips, honestly, from the stream. So it was pretty good to see that, and I know that boosts motivation and general morale,” Buchyns said.
The first game went to Akron after a back-and-forth battle between the two teams, being tied at one goal each at the start, but a late-game push from Akron saw them take the first game.
Humber followed up with a strike of its own, taking the next two games with back-to-back strong performances, putting them up in the set by two to one.
Humber looked and felt impressive at how it was able to play together as a team in the match. Noah "Noah1127" Mossini said the team is working well together.
“I think we're getting better with team plays in general and more, calling each other off the ball or calling for demolitions and stuff like that. We work it well-rounded. I feel like it's getting better at that thing. It's getting impressive to me,” Mossini said
But following that strong two-game push by Humber, Akron kept pushing back, showing why they are a challenging team to play, especially when it came to reading the play style.
“Towards the end, they were actually, like, pretty hard challenging, which became a little more difficult to read,” Buchyns said.
Akron would then go on to win the next two games to go up three to two, pushing Humber closer to staying winless in Midwest A (NECC).
But Humber crawled back to push for sudden death in the best-of-seven series.
In sudden death, Akron and Humber exchange goals early, but then Akron flipped the script, scoring two straight goals.
Humber's attempt to get back in the game wouldn’t matter as Akron held on to win, leaving Humber winless on the season, losing four in a row.
Humber’s coach had praise for his players, who battled right to the final minute.
“But it was also good just to see, the fight was still going all the way down to game seven,” Buchyns said.
