Cars playing soccer? It might be a weird concept for a game, but it’s extremely entertaining and frustrating. Students got to compete in the university’s first PS4 Rocket League tournament of the year on Thursday Jan. 25, but only one winner could emerge.

The tournament was set up by UNF’s Esports Coordinator Luis Puesan, who hosts weekly Super Smash Bros. matches and the scheduled tournaments throughout the semester. Only 15 players competed this time around, and Puesan decided to settle for One veruses One matches in the rocket-powered game.

The top three players were awarded medals. However, the medals weren’t there, so they will be delivered to the winners next week. The first place winner also got an exclusive poster created by Thafnine,  a graphic designer for Rival Esports and Paragon.

The rules are simple. Contestants control rocket-powered vehicles to push, slam, or crash the ball into the other player’s goal. Whoever has the most points within the five-minute match gets to move into the next round. It’s also double elimination meaning the loser gets a second chance to win if they are sent to the losers’ bracket.

The tournament had the audience mesmerized as they saw the players colliding, rocket cars flying, and balls exploding throughout the matches.

Eventually, it came down to the match with Elias Slimon and Josh Olexa to decide who would play in the semifinals. During the span of five minutes, Slimon beat Olexa, 5-1. Afterwards, Slimon headed to the semifinals against Nicholas Brown, who started the tournament with an 8-0 score against Austin Rowley, who won against Jacqueline Libern (6-4) and Austin Devries (6-2 ).
The rules during the semifinals changed to best out of three matches with Slimon and Brown. After only two matches, Brown won and beat Slimon 1-0 in the first match and 2-0 in the second match sending Slimon to the losers bracket.

In the fifth round of the losers bracket, Josh Olexa and Austin Devries competed in an amusing fashion. They both decided to play while driving their cars in reverse making for both a fun and challenging match. There were backflips, mishaps and more importantly explosions during this interesting run. The match even went into overtime after the five-minute mark, and lasted for an additional two minutes. The round ended after Olexa finally scored into Devries’ goal.

In the losers final round, Slimon came up against Olexa for a best out of three match. After the first match however when Olexa won 3-1, Slimon resigned and allowed Olexa to move into the final round.

It all came down to the Grand Finals on who would win the precious poster–Nicholas Brown versus Josh Olexa. It turned out to be a close match between the two. Olexa won the first match, and Brown won the second. In the final match, both players were exchanging scores, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and after two minutes they were tied at five points each. It was a high-flying round and with only forty seconds left, the score became 6-6. Neither Brown nor Olexa were letting up, and they even went into overtime. Eventually, the final score was 7-6 with Brown being the winner of the poster.

Brown expressed how difficult and stressful it was throughout the tournament as he normally plays on the PC.

“I had a feeling that I’d win,” he said, “It was tough, but it was really fun to compete in the tournament.”

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