On April 17, 2026, the Trinity Esports team hosted South Park, Canon-McMillan, Greater Latrobe, Aliquippa and McGuffey for an Esports tournament at Trinity Middle School (TMS). The schools started arriving at 8:30 a.m., and they continued trickling in until about 9:15 a.m. As they arrived, they immediately began practicing their games in preparation for the tournament. The games started at 9:30 a.m.
The tournament included the playing of two games throughout the day.
“We will be playing Rocket League and Super Smash Bros,” Herr Mac said before the tournament.
The Rocket League tournament began in Group Play. Trinity, South Park and Aliquippa were in Group A. Canon-McMillan and McGuffey were in Group B. The Hillers had their first match against South Park. Trinity’s team is made up of all freshmen: Lincoln Schad, Hudson Starr and Logan Steele, as well as alternate Leland Burgess.
Steele talked about how he practices before each match: “I usually will go into standard training and work on mechanics and hitting the ball.”
Each match is a best of three series to collect the win. Trinity won their first match 3-1 and second match 2-1 to take a 2-0 series win. Trinity’s next match was against Aliquippa. After taking a 3-1 win, the Hillers lost the next two games to lose the series 2-1 and finish second in the group.
Since Group A had three teams and Group B had two, the top two seeds from Group A had a bye while the third place team played the second place team from Group B. Since the Hillers finished second in group play they had a bye. After their bye, they once again had to play Aliquippa. They took two hard losses and got swept in the series. Trinity did not let this affect them though, as they swept South Park 2-0 in the third place match to take third in the tournament.
The Super Smash Bros games started in a round robin style tournament. Everybody plays everybody in a best of five series. The six teams in the Super Smash Bros tournament were Trinity, Canon-McMillan, Greater Latrobe, Tri-Cats (a mix of McGuffey and Trinity students), McGuffey and TMS. Whoever has the best record after all the games is the winner.
The best of five is decided by five best of three matches of one team’s player against another team’s player. Each team’s players rotate in the best of five series. So, a game could be 15 matches or it could be six, depending on how the games turn out.
Trinity’s Super Smash team is made up of Freshman Tyler Koskoski, Freshman Dominic Noble and Sophomore Zach Banfield. The Hillers first series was against Canon Mac. Trinity took a 3-1 series win. The Hillers continued to sweep the rest of the competition the rest of the day taking four straight 3-0 wins. Since they went 5-0 throughout the day, the Hillers were crowned champions of the Super Smash Bros tournament.
Noble spoke on how he prepared for the tournament: “I practice in training, and I play in other competitions outside of school.”
Congratulations to the Rocket League team for third place and to the Super Smash Bros team for first overall place!
