Ilonggo High Schoolers Take Home National League of Legends Title
SRIA Miracles holding up the EAA 2019 Spring Split trophy. (Photo: Earon Villamora)
Representing the pinnacle of collegiate League of Legends, the St. Robert’s International Academy Miracles made a name for themselves and Iloilo as they won the Finals of the 2019 Esports AcadArena Spring Split at the Nexus GameCraft & Esports Expo.
In the opening match, Iloilo’s Miracles took no time pushing for an advantage in the early game and building up a strong lead. As the gold lead started to overwhelm UE’s Snipers Corp., the Luzon representatives went for a last ditch baron that ended up sealing their fate for the first game of the series.
In the following match, the snipers fought back impressively well with a good early-game skirmish that put them in the driver’s seat for the remainder of the game. Despite the lead however, SRIA Miracles never let down with the aggression and kept going for one-for-one trades. Eventually, Ren “Kanji” Motomitsu and the Miracles fell to the sheer amount of lockdown the snipers had with Veigar, Nautilus, and Gragas tying the series 1-1.
In the final game, both university squads went back and forth for the entirety of the game fighting their damn hardest for the championship trophy. Teamfight after teamfight, baron after baron, Christian Rey “ChristianRey” Manaois and Kanji each kept their respective team’s hopes alive with close back-to-back near aces. In the end however, the SRIA Miracles triumphed after 46-minutes worth of tenacious grit. Despite losing their nexus turrets early, Miracles held it down and won the last fight around Baron with Rojan “Row1” Capul’s Xayah surviving the engagement, ending the game and winning them the series.
As the underdogs, the UE snipers put up a damn good fight for the audience at Nexus. The passion for collegiate esports shone through as the collective cries of the audience and the players themselves echoed through the FEU Tech Gym. And as the day ends, SRIA Miracles take the trophy back to Iloilo and prove that the esports scene outside of Metro Manila is alive and kicking.
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