The San Jose State Rocket League Blue team has kicked off its season to see how it compares to the rest of the nation. SJSU has three Rocket League teams, Blue, Gold and Vip3rs with each being a different skill level.
The top team is Rocket League Blue, which includes a roster featuring Daniel "DD" Warda, Jonathan "Johnny" Lopez and Ryan "Toasterdoggo" Chong.
Every member of the Blue team is ranked Grand Champion 2 or above with Toasterdoggo being ranked one of the top 100 players in the world. The roster has shown strong tournament showings in the past, being ranked 6th in the nation last spring. This semester Blue team is competing in EGF and PlayVs, two national collegiate tournaments that run for the full semester.
Blue team's captain DD has been responsible for hosting collegiate tournaments in the past, like the California Championship, an invitational that brought together the best collegiate teams in California with $300 in prize money.
In addition to serving as team captain for Blue team, DD also manages the activities of the Gold and Vip3r teams.
DD also worked alongside SJSU Esports and Associated Students to host the Esports Rocket League Competition, a 2v2 tournament open to students. The tournament was hosted on Oct. 23, with nine teams competing for gift cards as prizes.
Blue team's current roster has been playing together for a year now and Toasterdoggo said they have worked out a lot of the issues they had when the team first came together.
"Learning how each other play and understanding our strongpoints and weaknesses, we were able to grasp and understand how to play with each other as a team," said Toasterdoggo.
Despite the strong synergy they have formed over the past year, Toasterdoggo said there's still room for growth.
"Consistency is one thing that comes with playing more individually and as a team. It's all about putting in the hours," he said. "We're still getting used to playing with each other so we can get better and better with communication and decision making."