Welcome to Freddy's Patch Notes - your weekly recap of everything varsity esports at UW-River Falls! Our varsity esports program spans nearly a dozen rosters across several different leagues and tournament including the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE), National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC), Wisconsin Collegiate Rocket League (WCRL), and MidwestR6 (MWR6).


 
To kick off the season, the Falcons flew to Sandusky, Ohio on September 8th to compete in one of the largest annual fighting game tournaments this side of the Mississippi, Riptide 2023. With almost 2000 attendees across all events, including some of the top players in the world, UWRF Esports's Super Smash Bros. Melee roster had a consistently strong showing across the 3-day tournament. Caleb Royal, Anthony Braun, and Ben Strandmark propelled Minnesota to a 2nd place finish in a Midwest All-Star Showdown upsetting top seeded Ohio in the semifinals. In Melee Doubles, Anthony & Ben placed 5th & 9th respectively. In Melee Singles, UWRF's Ben stole the show with a monstrous run to a 5th place finish out of the nearly 500 entries, upsetting professional players such as Tempo Storm's "Axe" & Golden Guardians's "n0ne" along the way.
 
To end the month, the Smash Ultimate roster along with Melee players Caleb Royal & Lamont Santo traveled to downtown Milwaukee for the first ever Cream City Convergence, a regional fighting game tournament organized by the Milwaukee Esports Alliance & Milwaukee Bucks Gaming. Royal lead the team with a top 10 finish in Melee Singles while Riley Bresette placed 49th out of 174 in the Ultimate Singles bracket.
 
Back on campus, our other rosters were active in online qualifiers throughout the month of September. To kick off the month, UWRF Valorant made a quarterfinals run in the Red Bull Campus Clutch Great Lakes Qualifier before falling to Rochester. The Valorant, Overwatch 2 F1, and Rocket League rosters each placed Top 16 in the Collegiate Esports Commissioner Cup (CECC) Midwest Qualifiers. Our Rocket League team posted back-to-back weekends of 2-2 finishes in the Collegiate Rocket League (CRL) East Qualifiers.
 
In league play, an up-and-down first week of regular season in NACE & NECC was capped off with a commanding 2-0 win for the Falcons over Dunwoody in an NECC Rainbow 6 Siege divisional showdown. In their 2nd week, UWRF Esports is already off to a blistering 6-1 start with wins across NACE, NECC, and the Wisconsin Valorant Academic Circuit (WVAC).
 
In a quieter week for the team, the Falcons have their work cut out for them with matches against Fisher College in Rainbow 6 Siege, Butler University in Valorant, and Carthage College in Rocket League. 

Past results: