Conference One: Interview with Washington University in St. Louis' Team Coordinator
Conference One's Diamond and Below division of Valorant finished up a few weeks back after a 22 team tournament. In the end, one team remained as winners for the season, Washington University of St. Louis. WashU was the top seed in our tournament and finished up as the top team. Will Hunter, Coordinator for the team, was asked a few questions about their team's Fall performance.
Will Hunter was asked to assess the team's play in the fall. Mr. Hunter answered with "I'm really excited about our performance! This was the first league that we have won (first esports championship ever for WashU), which was a huge accomplishment! How can you not be with such extraordinary success? The weekend of playoff matches was difficult, as we played many tough matches, but we mentally stayed strong and played our game, and I couldn't be happier with the outcome!"
WashU dominated from the beginning of Conference one play, but even a team with that skill level must have improved throughout the season. Mr. Hunter responded to that with, "As a team, we really focused on being more flexible during attacking rounds and communicating overall. Over the season, we became more comfortable with playing slower rounds and defaulting and really focused on exposing our opponent's weaknesses. Our communication has been rocky in the fall, but all those worries washed away during playoffs, and we were able to develop an efficient comms structure." The extra comfort led them to a 3-1 win in the best of five finals.
Leadership can be a major reason for team success. Will Hunter pointed out two people who stepped up in their Conference One Fall run. Hunter exclaimed, "In-game, our leader is Juan (MeeeesterJuan). He can craft really awesome set plays for us to execute and always gives advice. Unofficially, Adam (unofficial) also stepped up to become a great leader, especially during playoffs. When tensions were running high, he was always able to be objective and make sure that we kept our heads in the game." WashU stayed calm in the playoffs with all the pressure on. Clearly, the added leadership was crucial to their game plan.
Looking forward to the spring season, Hunter spoke on what the team needs to work on, stating, "Going into the next season, I really want to focus on our map pool. In the fall, we had three really solid maps, but I want to make sure that we can perform well on almost every map (especially for our best-of-five sets). I also want to focus on experimenting with different agents and new set plays on defense." If WashU can get better in these areas, they may just be walking into another season at the top, which Will Hunter did talk about as their expectations. Hunter emphatically stated, "I expect us to win a back-to-back championship! We have a lot of chemistry and will only grow more. We were never pushed to our full potential in the fall, so I am excited to see where that is." Teams must beware - if WashU didn't reach full potential, they might be even scarier next season.
