The Stay Plugged In team wrapped up their most prominent college esports recruiting event, Carry2College, this past weekend. The annual event welcomes hundreds of high school students online to show off their skills in a two-day esports competition, as well as connect with collegiate esports scouts during the event's college fair.
Included in the initial kick-off weekend was the game VALORANT, arguably the hottest esports title in both the college and professional scenes today. A total of 140 potential future collegiate VALORANT student athletes signed up to compete in Carry2College, seeking esports scholarship opportunities among some of the top colleges and universities across North America.
Let's reflect on the VALORANT competition, and highlight some standout players and results in this special C2C edition of the BearLight breakdown.
STORYLINES
Seven teams go undefeated through the 3-match group stage.
As one of the most competitive titles currently out there for student athletes, going undefeated in the VALORANT Group Stage during the biggest online esports recruiting event of the year is incredibly difficult to do. It requires all players of your team to be prepared for the event in advance, and to be focused once into the action.
For this reason, we would like to highlight the players on all seven teams who were able to kick off the event with this impressive feat:
Engineers - MajesticNutz / bd0n / PotatoTap / vena / kdn / bao
RHS Terriers - RASCAL / Booey / ferve / Ciphxr / Toyin
Bone - sacred / exa / azrex / lucas / ion2x
Palworld - Gloriousminds502 / redeed / Aurelion / Jackky / Demi
Meyowwww - Scrt / ozuken / ariso / blehhhsilly / d0v3s
Dreamland - riv6r / TooSmartNA / tanglytree / Snorkel / Alex1
1980 x 1 - echo_vlr / leftyl / reboo / angi3 / nouh1206
"Palworld" turns blind eye to original #12 seeding, finishes top 4.
Whether you play video games or not, you have probably heard of the new craze called Palworld, an open world survival and crafting game with creatures resembling the likeness of Pokémon. Although we are not referring to the game Palworld, the team led by senior Demi certainly was when they named their team "Palworld". They stayed true to the name by blowing expectations out of the water.
Thanks to the appearance of twelve 2023 Stay Plugged In Coca-Cola All-Stars in this year's C2C, team Palworld fell to #12 in the seeding leading up to the weekend. Where other teams may get discouraged, Palworld took to the spotlight early, and defeated long time Stay Plugged In legends in SPIRE Academy on the main stream by the count of 13-6.
Demi (Senior) had an excellent run with the team and played a critical role as a the team's leader and reliable sentinel, but it was GloriousMinds502 (Junior) who stole the show. 'Glorri' never dipped below 20 kills in any match played, and dipped below the 25 mark just twice.
The level of focus and execution displayed by Glorii opened the flood gates for Palworld, as it took three-time Stay Plugged In Showcase winners Engineers to take them out in the Semifinals, placing them in top 4 for the event.
Engineers make another Finals appearance, this time for the C2C title.
The new Stay Plugged In Showcase Series released just last year has featured VALORANT a total of three times. The Engineers have won all three. Their dominance with the Series rightfully placed them at the top of the pre-event seeding list, and despite missing andrew and moonke due to scheduling conflicts, they certainly played like the top team throughout the weekend.
Simple math would indicate that missing 2/5 of the roster isn't necessarily the easiest obstacle to traverse, however, kdn and vena stepped up in the Group Stage to assist the Engineers in going 3-0 in matches played and securing the top seed for the Final Bracket.
Vena remained in for the Engineers on Day 2 for their Final Bracket push, however, 'bao' needed to come in for kdn. The Engineers had exhausted their final available substitution and would need to reorganize for their run.
Luckily for the Engineers, bao was ready from the start, putting up a highlight play against Palworld in the Semifinals to spark a comeback effort, one which would lead the Engineers to the Finals against team "Bone".
Team Bone ends the Engineers Stay Plugged In tournament winning streak, wins the Best-of-three 2-0.
The first map between Bone and Engineers in the Finals was Split, which was an appropriate name for the evenly match tilt, especially in the first half.
Majestic (Senior) was at a 32 kill pace through the first half, bringing a 16/8/1 KDA into the second half. There wasn't one particular player with outstanding numbers on team "Bone", not to mention, former Stay Plugged In Coca-Cola All-Star, sacred' was held to just a 4/7/2 KDA.
Yet despite the unimpressive individual numbers, Bone were able to band together to steal a few rounds away, and tied up the round score 6-6 as they transitioned to the attack side. Bone won 7 of the next 11 rounds, taking Map 1 and would head to match point at Ascent.
The score pinballed back and forth, and after 10 rounds we were dead even at 5 rounds apiece once more. Faster than our viewers could say "here we go again", team Bone shot out of a cannon. Azrex and exa took matters into their own hands and would go on a tear to propel their team to 8 rounds straight, defeating Engineers 13-5 and taking the title.
After going a perfect 7-0 in maps played over the course of the weekend, we congratulate team "Bone" on their 2024 Carry2College Championship win for VALORANT!
WINNERS & AWARDS
VALORANT Champions
Engineers - MajesticNutz / bd0n / PotatoTap / vena / kdn / bao
Top Fragger
Name: GloriousMinds502 | Team: Palworld | Grad Class: 2025
GloriousMinds couldn't be stopped, earning the top frag spot amongst both teams in every match, including their triple OT win and the Semifinals match they dropped to the Engineers. Glorri put up 97 kills in just four maps played, ending the weekend with a 1.74 KDA and a well earned Top Fragger title.
Utilitarian
Name: exa | Team: Bone | Grad Class: 2026
In a bracket that featured 16 teams with players ranks averaging Immortal or better, your area control needs to be extremely polished, borderline perfect, in order to find the title. What made exa's performance truly outstanding was the level of effectiveness shown on the vast amount of agents used in the run. We saw exa on Brimstone, Viper, Omen, Cypher, and Killjoy, each depending on the map in order to gain a competitive advantage for team Bone. Most notably, this play as Omen to use his teleport utility "From The Shadows" to go cross map and turn a tough 1v2, into a round win on the final map. This was the round that sparked the team's 8-round streak to the title.
Survivalist
Name: lucas | Team: Bone | Grad Class: 2024
As the perfect compliment in the controller/sentinel ebb and flow for team "Bone" with exa, lucas also played strong matches with five different agents over the course of the weekend. Exa was certainly more proactive in timely moments, but for every aggressive controller on your team, you need one role player that knows how to purposefully play late into rounds, and keep some vital utility in hand for clutch moments. In four-of-seven maps played, lucas had the lowest death number in four of them, and it's what was accomplished in those late-round moments that earns the senior a C2C Survivalist title.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A big thank you goes out to all of the college representatives, players, parents, and staff for attending and making this event truly outstanding.
The next chance to compete in VALORANT in front of college recruiters will be the Stay Plugged In Showcase in mid-March. You don't want to miss it!
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Improve your approach with college esports recruiters during esports recruiting events, and learn how to construct and execute your elevator pitch.
To learn more about our upcoming esports recruiting events, check out our article with all the information you need to compete in front of college esports teams.