According to senior Jeremy Frham “Overwatch” requires quite a lot of skill in order to succeed at gameplay.

“‘Overwatch’ is a team based strategy game,” Frham said. “It takes a lot of coordination and knowledge of the game to fully understand it.”

Head coach of the Esports program Jacob Utites said Esports is much like other sports just in video game format.

“Esports is video game sports, it’s typically team-based, but there are some individual games where we compete against other teams around the country,” Utites said.

Junior Joseph Lindstrom said the team is currently doing amazing in regular season.

“The ‘Overwatch’ team is currently undefeated in season, 7-0,” Lindstrom said.

According to senior Thomas Pelowitz if the team competes well enough, they can attend Nationals again.

“We are doing a regular season right now, then we will go into playoffs after this,” Pelowitz said. “If we get first or second in the playoffs, then we can go to another Nationals.”

Frham said he believes the “Overwatch” team is still capable of doing well this year.

“Right now our team is looking just as strong as last year,” Frahm said. “We lost two players from last year. Our captain from last year was a really good player but we lost him.”

According to Pelowitz, the competition’s skills have been on the light side, and he hopes this continues through the playoffs.

“The competition so far has been relatively easy maybe one or two hard matches,” Pelowitz said. “Usually the only time we struggle is around playoffs.”

Utites said he enjoys Esports because anyone can play Esports and be successful.

“My number one thing is that anyone who wants to become successful in Esports can. It’s not like other sports where you have to be born six foot five or be gigantic to be successful,” Utites said. “You can be huge you can be tiny, Esports doesn’t discriminate in that way.”

Lindstrom said there is pressure to repeat as champions, but he said he believes the team is up for the challenge.

“It might be a little bit different now that we are moving up to play other teams that are good like us, so there might be a little more pressure,” Lindstrom said. “However due to our victories in the past, and still currently our team composition, and our communication and our coordination we are really still doing well.”

Utites said Esports is growing in Minnesota and in schools near Park.

“Since we were the first program in Minnesota to start, I have helped 10 other schools start programs, Rosemount, Washington, Wilmar — Burnsville is trying to start one up,” Utites said. “There is quite a few of schools starting Esports programs.”