Photo courtesy of Cameron McKinley
Spain Park High School students Canon Shaw, Matthew Brumbeloe and Reese Copeland warm up for a Super Mario Bros. Ultimate match at the state championship tournament at the Magic City ePLEX in Birmingham, Alabama, on Friday, April 29, 2022. They ended up winning the state championship.
Spain Park High School’s esports team got some of its mojo back this year and captured its second state championship in one of the four video games that were in this spring’s state competition.
Matthew Brumbeloe, Reese Copeland and Canon Shaw formed a team that captured first place in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game. It was one of four teams Spain Park had competing in Smash Brothers this spring.
The trio defeated a team from the Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School in Montgomery 3-0 in the finals on April 29. There were more than 60 teams competing in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game, coach Cameron McKinley said.
Last year, Spain Park had a team that made into the playoffs in Smash Bros., but it lost to Thompson. This year, Spain Park beat Thompson in the quarterfinals, and Thompson was there cheering for Spain Park in the finals, McKinley said.
Another one of the Spain Park teams competing in Smash Bros. made it to the final 16. That team included Mason Waldron, Leon Zheng, Melvin Warui and Elijah McCay.
Spain Park also had two teams competing in the Rocket League game, and both of them made the playoffs. A team made up of Xay Davison, Tanner Graham and James MacKay reached the final four, and a team made up of Jordan Steele, Ton Tran and Kameren Wright made the final eight.
The Jags had one team (made up of Mackenzie McCall, Walker McCay, Ashaaz Daredia, Scott Shepherd, Kyle Edwards and Cade Thompson) competing in a game called Splatoon, and that team made it to the playoff round with 16 teams, McKinley said.
Hoover High School had two teams make the playoffs this spring. A team made up of Jackson Standridge, Rahil Hussain, Syd Lage, Syd Moore and Turner Wood made the top 16 in the League of Legends game, and a team made up of Noah Hyer, Fernando Acevedo and Jack Knight made the top 16 in Rocket League.
Spain Park won its first esports state championship in the very first time a championship event was held in the spring of 2019. That was in the League of Legends game, and Spain Park has not fielded a team in League of Legends since then, McKinley said.
“That game is really difficult, and it takes a lot of time to learn,” she said.
A team from LAMP won the League of Legends state championship this spring, and a team from Hoover High School captured second place in League of Legends this past fall with team members Rahil Hussain, Jackson Standridge, Hieu Tran, Syd Lage, Aiden Pinckard and Nelson Coler (sub).
Bob Jones High School captured this spring’s championships in Rocket League and the Madden 22 football competition.
McKinley said esports continues to gain popularity since getting started as a sport sanctioned by the Alabama High School Athletic Association in the spring of 2019. That year, Spain Park had about 12 students playing, and this year, Spain Park’s roster grew to about 37 students, she said.
This spring’s championships were played at the Magic city ePLEX, a facility in the Crestwood Village shopping center in Birmingham with a stage built specifically for esports.
