The newest addition to the varsity lineup of teams for the eSports program at Ashland University, Call of Duty (COD), has made a mark in its first season as a varsity team.

Coming off a 6-6 record through the 2021-2022 fall and spring seasons in the club league, Head Coach Chance Mueller decided to give the team a shot to compete in the varsity league in the 2022 fall season.

For starters, collegiate COD teams compete in the National Association for College eSports Starleague (NACE), a league that hosts a variety of video game leagues for college eSports athletes. This league has a club, junior varsity and varsity league for all skill levels to be included.

The league follows the professional COD league rules and uses the game modes hardpoint, search-and-destroy and control.

“The match days are held every Wednesday at 7 pm,” said COD team member Connor Milne. “This will also expand into a playoff bracket towards the end of the regular season.”

In Week One of the 2022 fall season, the Eagles dominated the Ferris State Gold team by a 3-0 series sweep to start the season off with a 1-0 record.

Just a week later, the team took on one of the best teams in the league, Southern Illinois College.

SIC came into the competition swinging downing the Eagles in three games to record a 3-0 sweep. The Eagles were unable to pick up a single match in the five-game series and struggled heavily through all three game modes.

“As a team, we were not only upset about our performance, we were angry about it,” said COD team member Phillip Howman. “We know what were are capable of so we put that behind us and prepared for Week Three.”

The Eagles, who practice on Mondays and Tuesdays, added a third day to their practice schedule in order to get extra work in as the season continued. That extra practice day would be Thursdays.

With extra practice, the Eagles geared up for a Week Three competition against another heavy-hitting team, the Central Penn College Knights.

The Knights, coming into the competition sat at 2-0 on the season, while the Eagles sat at 1-1.

In what was expected to be a competitive matchup, that was exactly the case once it began.

The Eagles lost Map 1 by a 250-233 score but rebounded to win Map 2 by a 6-2 score.

Now with the series evened out, the Eagles went into Map 3 and ended up losing 3-2 to go down by one match in the series.

“We went down 2-1 in the series, but we picked each other up when we got down on ourselves,” said Howman. “We stayed disciplined and we were resilient for the remaining two matches.”

The Eagles rallied and won the remaining two by a score of 250-225 and 6-4 to pull out a 3-2 series win handing the Knights their first loss of the season.

Now at a record of 2-1, the Eagles had a chance to push toward the playoffs and a win in Week Four would certainly solidify a playoff appearance.

Week Four saw the team take on another high-ranking team in the Clarke University Pride, a team 3-0 on the season.

The Eagles fought well, but ultimately lost 3-0. Each game was close with the first Map ending with a score of 250-180, the second map ending 6-5, and the third map ending with a 3-2 score.

The loss to the Pride puts the Eagles in a tough spot. With playoff hopes still alive, the Eagles sit at 4th in the Eastern Conference behind the two teams they lost to and a team they play in Week Five.

The Eagles look to Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. when they take on the 3-1 Glenville State Pioneers in hopes to move up to third in the standings.