York College of PA League of Legends team takes home NECC championship trophy

York College of Pennsylvania’s League of Legends team took home a championship trophy in the National Esports Collegiate Conference (NECC).

Members of the team are Luke Nall, senior Computer Engineering major from Landenberg, Pa.; Isaac Yoka, junior Information Technology Management major from Mount Wolf, Pa.; Logan Reese, senior Mechanical Engineering major from Jackson, N.J.; Benjamin Reed, junior Finance major from Finksburg, Md.; Roger Casado Sanchez, sophomore Psychology major from York; and Aaron Davis, first-year Undeclared major from Rochester, N.Y.

Similar to traditions sports, esports has different titles, according to Kyle Rosen, York College’s Director of Esports. “League of Legends is the most popular title in esports, and our specific conference hosted over 150 teams from different colleges,” he explained.

NECC breaks down the conference into subsections that can be roughly equated to traditional sports – Big 10, Division 1, Division 2, and Division 3. The Big 10 are colleges that give full scholarships to student for eSports; Champions and Challengers are equivalent to Division 1; Emergents are equal to Division 2; and Navigators are equal to Division 3, Rosen said.

“We fall under Challengers, placing us roughly at the lower end of a Division 1 team. From there, NECC then splits us up into smaller conferences, ours being the Mideast conference, mostly so that we compete against local colleges that are around the same skill level,” he said.

Of the 152 teams that competed this semester, only 21 – including York College ­­­– took home a championship.

“This means that the win is a fairly significant accomplishment; however, it's not on the same level, as say, Penn State winning their football championships,” Rosen said. “This is the equivalent of a Division 1 team winning ‘state playoffs’ but not playing a "nationals" match.”