St. Margaret’s Esports Team Completes Successful Season and Looks to a Bright Future

Winning 10 matches against just six losses, a group of St. Margaret’s Upper School students are calling their first full season of esports competition a success—and a building block for the future of the student-led team.

The Tartans were one of hundreds of schools participating in a high school esports league through PlayVS, a leading esports league organizer. PlayVS recently partnered with CIF, California’s high school athletics governing body, to guide member high schools in California interested in pursuing esports as a co-curricular option.

The popularity of esports—short for electronic sports—is hard to overlook. The surge of participants around the world in recent years has led to scholarships for college esports teams, sponsorship money for top players and lucrative prize purses in league and tournament play, among other opportunities. The International Olympic Committee has even considered the possibility of esports in future Olympic Games. 

St. Margaret’s laid the groundwork for a team by offering esports as an Innovation Block choice back in 2018 and again in 2019. Students later organized a team with the school’s support, sending out surveys to Upper School peers to gauge interest and recruit players. The team’s inaugural season in the spring of 2020 was cut short when competitions were suspended due to the onset of the pandemic. 

This year, St. Margaret’s joined the PlayVS Pacific High School Esports Region and competed against other schools playing League of Legends, a popular multiplayer online battle arena game. For the year, the Tartans ranked 58^th out of 174 teams in the region.

“I was extremely happy with how we played,” said Upper School junior and team captain Reid Davis. “With little preparation time, and weird conditions due to the pandemic, our first match was a bit rough. But from there on out, the rest of our season was strong.”

For the PlayVS League of Legends Pacific Region, teams of five competed against each other every Tuesday afternoon over the course of several months. The five St. Margaret’s players worked together to meet objectives and beat their opponent, which demanded teamwork, strategy, tactics, communication and leadership skills.

Reid said each matchup required research on the schools and players they were facing, and he would create lists of in-game statistics to make sure the Tartans were as prepared as possible.

In addition, Reid worked with team advisor Ryan Dahlem, St. Margaret’s assistant head of school for strategic initiatives, to schedule games, register teammates and manage student schedules to ensure players were available each week. While the esports team was originally set up to continue playing in the school’s new Robotics Lab in the Library, this season the Tartans competed from their homes to adhere to health and safety guidelines while the Lab was temporarily repurposed as a Middle School math classroom.

Despite the challenges, the season had plenty of bright spots. The team qualified for the regional tournament, and freshman Tai Guo ranked 3^rd out of 754 students in gold per minute, a League of Legends in-game measurement of success.

With no seniors on the team this year, the Tartans will be an experienced squad heading into next season—and Reid feels the future is bright.

“I would love to see the team grow in size, and also advance in the bracket next year,” he said. “We ranked 58^th, which I was beyond happy with; however, I truly think we could have achieved even higher.”