The Jones Valorant E-Sports team continued its winning streak after defeating Plainfield North on Jan. 9, and improved their record to 3-1.

Valorant is a team-based, tactical shooter video game. The game consists of one attacking team and one defending team. Both teams can pick characters with different special abilities and have their choice of weapon. The object of the game is to eliminate all of the members of the other team.

 Each match has three games. To win the match, one school has to win two out of three and each game is played to 13 points. 

The first match was hectic as Jones went up 12-7, but Plainfield came back and tied it, sending the game into overtime. Jones ended up winning the game 16-14.

“I think for the first match exclusively we played with good energy and confidence which was super helpful,” said team captain Caleb Sharky ‘21.

The second game was the polar opposite. Plainfield managed to counter Jones’ successful strategies from the first game and come out on top.  Thus, the team fell 13-11, and the match was tied one to one, forcing a winner-takes-all game three. 

“In game two we kept trying the same things which weren’t working,” said teammate Ben Roitman ‘21. 

In the third game, Jones turned things around and beat Plainfield 13-7. Jones was doing whatever they could to finish off the match, with attempts to mirror the successes of their first game.

“Going into game three we knew we needed to change up our play style for each round,” said Roitmen.

Jones was able to close things out and not give Plainfield a chance to comeback.

“When we went up 12-7 in the last game we knew we needed to close out the game and finish,” said teammate Alan Zavala ‘21. 

The team played with a lot of skill and had very good chemistry between teammates. Jones was able to clutch out their third victory of the year, and said they were proud of the way they played. 

“Our strengths were that we listened well and were able to adapt to the other team,” said Sharky. “For the future, we can work on positioning and just master the fundamentals.”