The University of Redlands houses a wide variety of sports programs, but not all include a ball or a field. Last fall semester, the University introduced the ESports Center, run by Jacob Beach, alongside a slew of new teams to join. One of these teams is the Smash Bros Team, consisting of seven players and many tournaments.
Reporter Brianna Quezada sat down with Beach and Esports Super Smash Team members to gain insight into the Smash team.
Quezada : Thank you for speaking with me! What is your name, year of school, major, and who you play in Smash?
Rodrigo Serrano Cendejas – Junior Year – Entering Business Administration – Plays as Incineroar
Justin Ibarra-Ramayo – Junior Year – Business Administration Major – Plays as Greninja
Jaeden Sanchez – Freshman Year – Major in Flute Performance – Plays as Isabelle
Blake St. Lawrence – Sophomore Year – Major in Environmental Science – Plays as Terry & Kazuya (Fatal Fury/Tekken)
Joshua Kealoha – Senior Year – Johnston Student with an emphasis in Graphic Design and Concept Art – Plays as Robin
Jordan Stanford – Freshman year – Majoring in Film – Plays as Zelda
Jacob Beach – Director of ESports, with Redlands for 3 years.
Quezada : What are the hours of the team so far?
Beach: “For Smash Practices, we only have one official practice a week- which is a film review. We then have one match per week, where we are against another university online, and then once a week we attend the Riverside Local Smash Tournament at Riverside Game Lab, with anywhere from 40 to 80 local players that are all pretty good talents- that is our main practice.”
Quezada : What is the training like? What do you get out of it from a practice perspective?
Ramayo : “So, basically, ever since the ESports program started here at the university I’ve played a bit of smash, every day usually, either here or at home. Just to like, get some reps in. Recently, since I’ve finished all of my really difficult classes, I’ve wanted to put more time into it. It helped me increase how I was thinking about everything related to games, and how it’s not just ‘this character does this’ or ‘this character does that’. It’s thinking more of ‘why are they doing this?’ and what can you do to counter it and stuff like that.”
Kealoha : “Being in my final senior semester, it’s been kind of difficult to play as much as I would like to, but having scheduled practices in the ESports arena here has helped a lot with being able to come in at a scheduled time and being able to work around it with other things. When we’re here, it’s good to play against other players, especially since online isn’t the best. So, it’s good to be in person and play against people, especially if you are around equal levels with the other students here. It’s good to give feedback to each other and understand how others see the game and eventually apply that knowledge to your own gameplay.”
Quezada : How many events have you done? Which have been the most memorable?
Beach: “Smash doesn’t do too many big community events necessarily. Of course, we do the weekly matches and then the weekly tournament at Riverside’s Game Lab, it’s a pretty big deal. One event we went to 2 ½ weeks ago was the 150th month anniversary of that particular tournament out in Riverside. It was a large event with 90-something players, including 20 officially ranked players in Southern California. That is more what we do, rather than hosting our own events. A lot of players here are in their first term with ESports, so it is very fresh for them.”
Quezada : How has the experience been for the team thus far?
Cendejas : “It’s been really interesting to see all the different types of skill levels that you can see at the tournament. There’s people ranging from absolute beginners to straight-up pros, and it’s like I can reach those same levels of skill if I keep working at it and training at it, competing with other people.”
Sanchez : “I’ve been consistently on the smash team the longest, ever since fall semester of last year. It’s been fun; I was able to see a lot of our roster improve. All of last year’s semester roster was seniors, and it was nice being able to send them off. We performed our best that season.”
Quezada : This team sounds really amazing! What’s the process for joining this team?
Beach : “As far as being able to join the team, there are multiple avenues to get there. One, demonstrated by Blake, Jordan, and Jaeden, typically consists of this process where, at some point through the application process, they either applied for the ESports Scholarship or an admissions counselor identified them as a gamer or interested in ESports and got in contact with me. I would do a one-on-one interview, we talk, discuss what they want out of ESports, what does that look like, what’s your experience, and then we onboard them that way. A lot of players in this room also were walk-ons or came from different titles. Justin, for example, actually came to me wanting to do Apex, but we don’t have an Apex team. Smash was a secondary team, and he found a passion in that. Rodrigo was a walk-on this year, he originally joined in to beat his brother and I said ‘You’re what we want!’, and went from there. There’s a couple avenues to get there; ultimately, they just have to be in contact with me. There are no skills expected to be on the team, you just have to have the right focus, a desire to improve, and a want to be part of a team and something bigger.”
Sanchez : “I was originally on our Valorant Academy Roster, but about a few weeks before competition started, I decided to try out for the Smash team, as I’d already been consistently beating one of the other members.”
Quezada : Were there any previous teams before this?
Beach : “Redlands specific, we’re in our second year. We’ve had two full terms prior to this, at the time of the launch of the ESports program. We had a lot of seniors on that roster, we were able to see them as seniors say ‘Hey, I still want to get involved, this is something I love and want to do.’ They joined the team and played, it was super fun. We sent them off with a cool season, it was exciting. They all came here with a different goal, and as seniors, it’s hard to get extra involved. You see the end! You’re so close to the end!”
Quezada : Anything else you think people should know?
Beach: So far, this season, we’ve projected and probably will make it to the finals of our division. We’ve scouted our opponents pretty heavily, and we don’t see any of them beating us. This does mean, going into Spring Semester, we’ll move up to the premier league, which has a $10,000 cash prize.
To watch the Smash Bro Team games live, check out the Official Redlands ESports Twitch
And if you’d like daily updates on what matches are live, and events that may be occurring, follow the ESports Instragram Account!
Students who are interested in joining the Smash Team, or any other Esports team, can contact Jacob Beach at (jacob_beach@redlands.edu) or (909) 748-8245). He can also be contacted on Discord at blitzkrieg30.
Photo taken by Marissa Torres
Brianna Quezada is a sophomore, with an emphasis in Psychology and Child Development. Some of her favorite things to do include digital art, reading, and watching horror movies. She is a member of the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies and is part of the E-Sports center.
