The Unit 5 Esports team is headed by Jarrod Rackauskas, a chemistry teacher here at Normal West.
The club has been running since 2018 and plays a variety of different games against high schools across the state.
Since August, the Unit 5 players have been competing against thousands of players from 120+ Illinois high schools to earn a spot in the IHSEA Battle Royale championship.
On Saturday, Nov. 1st, Senior Gavin Crawford became the first player in IHSEA history to win back-to-back solo Fortnite state championships, with 4 score royales (last man remaining).
Success is nothing new to Crawford, though.
He is regarded as one of the most talented high school players in the country and the best in the state.
Last year, he won the solo state championship and the national solo championship, as well.
Also playing in the solos championship was freshman Luke Smart (S650Style). He placed an excellent 37th, unfortunately being eliminated by Crawford in each match.
On November 3, Gavin Crawford (Phenom), and Eli Young (Rigsky) from Normal West and Cashton McGowan (Stratus) from Normal Community, competed as a trio in the IHSEA Fortnite Trio State Championship.
Before the championship Young was asked if he was excited for the chance to go back-to-back.
“If the jobs not finished, what is there to be happy about? I know we got to go out, play our best, and win state,” Young replied.
“I’d say that since almost all of us are competitive players, some of us being more experienced than others, we all know the meta and how to execute the things that allow us to outplay the opponent. I’d also say that our main game plan was to get the best loot and push the whole lobby with confidence,” Smart (S650Style) added.
The trio proceeded to take home the trio championship in utter domination, with confidence the whole time.
Of the 5 games played, Unit 5 won 4, taking the win by a 341 point margin, scoring 688 points.
Wheaton Warrenville South who placed second scored 347, and Niles North scored 294 points in third.
Of course, as with anything, there were a few challenges that the trio had to overcome. Although, these were not enough to stop the group from going back-to-back.
“I’d say the toughest moment was going into the 2nd game when Cash’s internet went out. Eli and I were forced to play as a duo, unfortunately letting WWS have a good game to catch up to us on the leaderboard; at the end of the day we knew we should be winning every game so this was definitely a tough situation throughout this competition,” Crawford (Phenom) replied.
It was team chemistry that truly helped this team get through.
“Our team chemistry provides us advantages to play off of each other and understanding their play styles allows us to get high kill games,” McGowan (Stratus) mentioned
Out of all eliminations scored over the 5 games, Crawford scored the most, followed by McGowan scoring the 2nd most.
If you have any questions or interest in E-sports, you can contact Mr. Rackauskas.
