JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College esports team lost the first match of nine group stage games of the AVGL tournament against Ohio State University's JV team, 2-0.
Game 1 started off strong for IC. The bot lane duo of the champions Jhin and Morgana were able to get five kills in the first 10 minutes and take the early first tower of the game. This gave IC an early $3,000 gold lead. The game started going downhill after the bot lane swapped lanes to try to take the top lane tower. Ohio State's top laner was also strong and able to fight back, taking three early kills for himself as well. This let Ohio State's team composition scale, which means that their champions are stronger later in the game and weaker earlier in the game. The scaling was too much for IC after Ohio State got baron at around 24 minutes. Ohio State took Game 1 in 35 minutes.
Game 2's early game was not as kind to IC. The bot lane did not win as hard as they did in Game 1, which made the transition to the mid game much harder. Ohio State took the first tower and was able to take an early $2,000 gold lead at 10 minutes. They were able to expand this lead by taking all of the outer towers and controlled all the objectives on the map. Once Ohio State took baron at 23 minutes, they were able to push down the top lane for all of the towers and end the game.
The tournament continues for Illinois College next week with a matchup against the University of Northern Iowa.
