The North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) is undergoing its second season as an esports league for High School students. Their mission is to provide opportunities for all students to use esports as a way to develop critical communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills that students can use later on in life. This season NASEF partnered with TESPA to host an Overwatch tournament; this differed from season one’s League of Legends tournament.
The organization began as the Orange County High School Esports League. Their inaugural season was hosted as a League of Legends tournament for Orange County teams.
“Orange County High School Esports League provided Orange County high school students with the opportunity to pursue their interests, develop a greater community, and enhance their skills in leadership, teamwork, problem-solving and communication”
–North American Scholastic Esports Federation Official Site
After this successful event, which was won by Fountain Valley High School (Gold), the league developed into what is now known as NASEF. Their entrance into the esports community has seen them expand in the number of teams, clubs, and participants within their community.
Season Two
Season Two began with the development of an Overwatch tournament in partnership with TESPA. After 6 weeks of regular season matches, the top 16 teams from the 47 teams who participated in the Group Stages qualified for the single elimination bracket. From these 16 teams, only four will move on to the National Championship. The Championship will be held on December 15, 2018, at Esports Arena, Santa Ana, California.
The single elimination bracket will begin on November 28, 3:00 PM PST. Frontrunners for two of these four spots are Westminster High School and Sunny Hills High School who both had undefeated records throughout the regular season. All 16 participating teams boasted winning records which will make the single-elimination bracket a competitive event.
The format for the playoffs will be a Towers of Doom bracket. For those unfamiliar with the format, the Towers of Doom bracket is a single elimination bracket in which teams are placed deeper into the bracket based on their seeding from the Regular Season. Therefore, lower seeded teams will face more elimination matches of increasing difficulty while facing top-seeded teams at the end of the bracket for a chance at the Live Finals (Top 4). With this format, teams will know potential playoff opponents in advance providing time for preparation, studying, and practicing. Towers of Doom play will occur over two weeks and consist of three best-of-3 matches.
Predictions
Bracket One:
In bracket one, we have Portola against El Dorado in the first round, with Troy waiting in round two and favored Westminster waiting in the qualification round three. The bracket will be close, and although all the competitors have a good chance, the undefeated Westminster High School will push through and move on to the National Championships.
Portola High School[1 – 2] El Dorado High SchoolEl Dorado High School[1 – 2] Troy High School- Westminster High School [2 – 0]Â
Troy High SchoolÂ
Bracket Two:
The most competitive bracket for qualification, the second bracket pairs up the 12th and 13th seeds from the regular season with the fourth and fifth seeds. This bracket boasts both La Quinta High School (second place in season one) and Cypress High School (third place in season one). They will be looking to make noise in the NASEF league once again. The final matchup will be between the season one top four teams. Cypress will take this close series after a hard-fought final map.
- La Quinta High School [2-0]
Chaparral High School Oakmont High School[1-2] La Quinta High School- Cypress High School [2-1]
La Quinta High School
Bracket Three:
The third bracket features the second undefeated team waiting for anyone in the final round. Sunny Hills High School (fourth place during season one) had an undefeated regular season. They are looked as favorites in bracket three. The path to the top four is in their hands.
Yorba Linda High School[0-2] Westview High School- Woodbridge High School [2-1]
Westview High School - Sunny Hills High School [2-0]
Woodbridge High School
Bracket Four:
The final bracket has the winners of season one, Fountain Valley High School. They are not the favorites to go through to the top four. Fountain Valley ended the regular season in the 11th seed, and University High School ended the season with a 5-1 record and the third seed. The storyline of Fountain Valley making it back to the top four would be great, but University High School will look to shut it down.
- Fountain Valley High School [2-0]
Wolverines Los Alamitos[1-2] Fountain Valley High School- University High School [2-1]
Fountain Valley High School
The North American Scholastic Esports Federation single elimination tournament begins on November 28, 2018, at 3:00 PM PST. Tune in LIVE at the NASEF Twitch.
The NASEF general information, rules, brackets, participants and results can be all found on the TESPA Tournament Page. You may follow NASEF on Twitter, Webpage, Discord, and Twitch.
Featured Image courtesy of North American Scholastic Esports Federation
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