Call of Duty: Warzone brings National Title to LCCC

Posted: Apr 27, 2022

CHEYENNE, WY – The Laramie County Community College esports Call of Duty: Warzone team brought home the 2022 Spring National Championship on Tuesday night, delivering the Golden Eagles their first national title for the athletic department since 1992.

In a three-round battle royale format, the freshman team of Sam Devine and Isiaha Ahrens didn’t just win, but dominated, finishing in third in the first round, before taking first in the final two rounds to lead the 25-team field.

“It’s the greatest," Head Coach Madison Marquer said. "Sam and Isiaha have just had so much perseverance and strength during the season, they’ve altered their strategies and tried so many different things, and their communication is so key.”

The communication between the two led to the team totaling 44 kills in the three matches, and only saw the duo killed three total times.

“It’s still unreal to me. There is a lot going through my mind," said Isiaha Aherns.

The matches had a different feel than regular season competition delivered. While in earlier games, other players were very aggressive, leading to less teams remaining as the arena shrinks to force contact.

“Coming out of the gate, I was kind of nervous for how run and gun the battle royale is," said Sam Devine, who played Warzone as a single last semester. "But seeing how everyone really played slower and playing it as duos, it really leveled out the playing field for the competition. I was really surprised that for the finals, it was a really equal playing field for everybody.”

In an equal field, it really wasn't even close. The final scoring saw LCCC win with -83 points. Second place managed -45 points, and third earned -38 points, with fourth well behind at only -4 points.

Scoring is determined by position finished, and then subtracting two points for every kill the team combined for. The running total from the three rounds was added together to determine the victor.

It is a very different style of play from the other two Call of Duty categories, and the biggest change in style came from Isiaha, who is more used to a head-to-head style as a member of the CoD: Vanguard team. Devine was proud of his teammates ability to juggle both styles in a competitive way.

"I think Isiaha towards the end of the season really stepped up with his mentality and tried to switch off his four versus four mindset moving into battle royale and vice versa going switching out the battle royale mindset moving back into his four versus four, so I think he really came out strong at the end of this semester.”

Ahrens was just as complementary, if not more to Devine, who had several wins this year during the regular season after he had been isolated by an early death by Ahrens.

“At the start of the season I bet me and Sam both had the same thought of ‘I wonder what my teammate is going to be like', or 'I wonder how the season is going to go’," Ahrens said. "Once the season got started, we played really well together, won a few games during the regular season and I’m really looking forward to playing with him again.”

“I know they both said good about each other, but they could have never done it without being a team," Marquer said. "These finals tonight, they had to play as a team, they had to play slow, they had to make sure they were coming back if one of them died on top of each other. It really was the perfect pairing, perfect match, perfect way to end.”

And that is an exciting bit to think about. With both Devine and Ahrens coming back for their sophomore years, the Call of Duty teams seem to be in good hands for at least another year.

“Next year is definitely looking bright," said Devine. "Hopefully they keep Warzone for the next competition so we can run the team again, and I definitely think Call of Duty as a team is just going to thrive from learning from the mistakes from this year, because we already did so good and we just put those into practice for next semester, and I think we will just take first in everything.”

For Marquer, he feels this is a chance to get more people excited about the new sport at LCCC, and a chance for him to expand on the quality of competition in other games.

“We want to be good at everything we can possibly be good at," he said. "Call of Duty is already in such a good spot right now, it’s actually nice that next year there is opportunity to bring in other people who are playing other game titles, so I have that opportunity to focus on new incoming players more.”

Here is to a few of those recruiting conversations starting with, 'how would you like to play with the champs'.