High school students have a smashing good time in esports club

“Finally, it’s time,” Landon Staib, a junior, said was his initial thought when he learned esports could be on the way to PCHS. 

Early excitement was tempered, however, after the COVID-19 pandemic ended up closing schools and forcing educators to delay plans for launching the club last year. 

Mark Phillips, a senior, had also been hoping to partake last year, before, like so many other things, the coronavirus got in the way. 

But a year later, following weeks of organizing, practice and teamwork, the club is a reality and their spring season is underway. 

“For me, having the opportunity to do it for a year is still dope,” Phillips said. 

For Chase Marlatt, a freshman, esports was never really something he thought of doing until the club was created, as the video games he played usually did not involve other players. 

Now Marlatt is a teammate alongside Staib, Phillips and eight other students at PCHS that are all members of the school’s first-ever program of this kind. 

Esports, or electronic sports, refers to organized competitions where participants compete by playing video games, which in recent years has exploded in popularity drawing billions of viewers and generating billions in revenue. 

High stakes competition

While some may find it hard to imagine taking video game play to such a high level, as the students explain there is a fine line between simply having fun and organized competition. 

“When you play the way that we do, it’s like there are higher stakes,” Phillips said. “If you’re playing casually, like just playing with friends on the sofa late at night with nothing to do the next morning, sure it can get competitive, but there’s nothing on the line.”

At PCHS, as all of its teams do in every sport, they are playing to win. The school’s esports club fields two teams of five that compete in the Esports Ohio league, which has over a hundred member high schools from throughout the state. 

“It certainly makes things stressful to know that it’s getting really serious,” Staib said.

Marlatt agreed that it can get stressful, but for him it was primarily in the beginning as it was a brand new thing in a new environment. Over time, things became more and more comfortable, he said. 

When regular practices first started, Phillips said it was tough as he has a busy packed schedule, with classes, other sports, the Touch of Class a cappella group and play rehearsals. Luckily, that eased up by spring. 

“Now that my schedules cleared up and I have more time to myself, I definitely look forward to it,” Phillips said. 

Smash Bros. is a fun fighting game

Both of Port Clinton’s teams compete playing “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” a fighting game on the Nintendo Switch system. 

For Staib, who throughout tryouts and practices emerged as one of PC’s top players and earned the role of captain, it was the ideal choice. While practicing at such a highly competitive level can be exhausting at times, he said, it is still worth the effort and is in a game he just loves to play. 

Marlatt, too, said that Smash Bros. is a game that always stays fun. 

“It’s still fun, but it gets you more in the zone,” Phillips said of organized competitive play. 

Bruno Bush and Taylor Freeman, both teachers at PCHS who are serving as advisers to the esports club, credited the students’ ability to learn from each other as they all varied in experience level with the game. 

“A lot of the game is getting to know it while you play,” Marlatt said. 

Phillips, who used to play an older version of Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 when he was much younger, still had a lot to learn as a newcomer to this most recent iteration, Ultimate. 

“A lot of it is figuring out what works for you,” he said. 

Recognizing that the games have evolved significantly since the N64 days, he described the learning process as “experimental” or “trial and error.” 

Even as one of the most experienced players in the club, Staib said it is difficult to teach the game to others. 

“Trying to teach them the stuff I know is probably the hardest part,” he said. 

Still, Staib said he has seen his teammates’ play improving, particularly with in-game decision making. 

“We’ve had some pretty high IQ plays,” Phillips said. 

jstinchcom@gannett.com 

419-680-4897 

Twitter: @JonDBN

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