ing grenades. He heals them. ….

ing grenades. He heals them. When he crouches he can jump higher.”

“I’m the weird one. I’m good with either the characters no one plays or everyone else is bad at,” Mantell said. “For attacking I’m Doomfist which is basically a character with a shotgun.”

“His knuckles have holes and it shoots bullets or he has a big arm that he can punch people with really fast or launch himself in the air and smack them,” Pocock said of Doomfist.

“I like Moira,” Mantell added. “She’s basically a vampire. If she drains the enemy’s health, it goes into her health. She can actually spray out healing power.”

“We had two six-person teams,” Wellman said of the Overwatch season. “That was the game where we were definitely better. The last game of the year, we played the best team in our division and took them right up to the end in every single match. They ended up beating us 3-1. It’s best out of five. Our record didn’t really show that we were great, but we got to be really good.”

Overall the WIHSEA conducts leagues in four games. Smite and Super Smash Brothers. Technical limitations prevented Medford from joining those leagues. The association does not offer any games that are rated M for Mature or feature excessive realistic violence. The Esports culture is also growing quickly at the collegiate level and schools are offering scholarships to top-scoring graduates at the high school level.

Along with the expansion to the high school next year, which excites this year’s eighth graders, Wellman is planning a few more advancements for season two of Esports in Medford.

“While I’m spectating here (in the MAMS computer lab), I’ll be able to record the whole game and then we’ll go back in and put commentary and then we’ll put it on a Glitch channel or Youtube channel,” he said. “I’ve already had kids who’ve said they don’t want to play but they’d like to broadcast. That type of broadcasting is called shoutcasting. The kids want to do that.”