Lander, Fort Washakie compete at state esports championships in Torrington

(Torrington, WY) – The theater inside Eastern Wyoming College’s fine arts building in Torrington looked nothing like a typical athletic venue last Saturday. Twenty PCs borrowed from the Torrington esports (electronic sports) team lined the room. Kids hauled in their own controllers, mice, and keyboards. A separate music rehearsal room in the building hosted the Nintendo games. The whole place smelled like teenage boy and pizza by the afternoon.

Welcome to the Wyoming state esports championships.

The Lander Tigers and Fort Washakie Eagles were among the high school teams that made the trip east for the tournament, organized by Fenworks, a company hosting esports competitions for colleges and high schools across the region. 

The games on the schedule ranged from chess to Fortnite, Minecraft Bedwars, Marvel Rivals, Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros. Some were played solo, others in teams. Mario Kart and Fortnite ran in 2v2 format, as did Minecraft Bedwars. Super Smash Bros and chess were 1v1. Marvel Rivals, a game that requires teams composed of players taking on roles like tank, healer, and DPS (damage per second), was a full 6v6 affair.

Lander’s Cyrus Foutz took home a state championship in chess for the second year in a row. Foutz also joined teammates Riley Marshall, Michael Marshall, Ian Swain, Fisher Garland, and Gavin Gomber on the Marvel Rivals squad, where the group finished second in the final spectacle of the day with six players on computers on each side of the main stage.

Fort Washakie had a strong showing of its own. Big Wolf Coulston took second in chess and then teamed up with schoolmate Daius Shoyo to place third in Minecraft Bedwars.

The regular esports season is played entirely online. Teams gather after school for practice and compete against schools from around the state through their screens. That means the state tournament is the first time most of these kids play in person, in the same room as their opponents, experiencing the nerves that come with it. There is a three-week break built into the schedule between the regular season and state.

Both Fort Washakie manager and math teacher Erick Sands and Lander head coach Peter Nichols think a regional LAN tournament before state would go a long way toward preparing their players.

“We’d love to get a tournament going in Fremont County during the downtime in between the regular season and state,” Sands said.

Hosting one among the local teams, they say, would benefit everyone involved. The coaches, from the five schools at the event, used the state competition as a networking event, exchanging ideas and sharing strategies on how to best serve their teams.

“Being at state is a great opportunity to talk to other coaches about what works best for their teams,” Nichols said.

Sands is excited about the future of esports in Fremont County. There are rumors that Riverton may field a team next season, which would add another local program to the mix.

Lander’s roster went through some turbulence this year. The Tigers started the season with about 30 kids and were down to 12 by state. Nichols attributes part of the attrition to practice being held at the middle school library, which may have turned off some high schoolers.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I can coach Mario Kart and Smash, but some of the others I know less about,” Nichols said. “I may have to take some professional development time this summer and learn Fortnite,” he laughed.

While players waited for their team’s name to get called to the playing area, plenty of them hung out eating pizza and playing Magic: The Gathering on the side. It was a charmingly stereotypical gathering of kids who live and breathe gaming.

Competitive gaming, in the sense of this tournament, has been around for 20 to 30 years, depending on who you ask. Professional gamers emerged around the turn of the millennium through titles like Quake, StarCraft, and Counter-Strike. Today, gaming has evolved further. Kids who are invested in gaming can watch their favorite streamers, players who, while sharing their screen and webcam video, combine charisma and inside jokes with elite skill at the games they play. Many of these streamers have millions of fans and tens or even hundreds of thousands of viewers on a nightly basis.

According to Pew Research, about four in ten American teens say they play video games daily. That rate is without a doubt higher than participation in any single high school sport. With programs now established in Lander and Fort Washakie, and Riverton potentially on the way, it is only a matter of time before gaming teams make their way to every high school in Fremont County.