Ridge Gamers To Compete In Esports Semifinals Saturday

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Ridge High School gamers will be competing on Saturday in the North American Esports Federation (NASEF) Overwatch tournament.

The eight students recently won the eastern division for the NASEF league last week and will be competing on Saturday in a full day tournament comprised of the top four teams around the country.

The students who are all part of the Ridge Esports club include: Jarrett Early, John Manfredonia, and Ryan Connell who are all in 12th grade, Patrick Kemp in 11th grade and Logan Flores and Thomas Watt both in ninth grade.

The competition involves students working together as a team to strategize and conquer an opposing school in the team-based multiplayer first-person shooter game called Overwatch.

"Overwatch is a player vs player type game, like a sport," said Justin Satter, the lead advisor of Ridge’s esports organization. "They play together and work as team to overcome other schools one round at a time. It’s like tennis where there are a number of sets whoever has the most or best is the winner. Overwatch has the best of five matches."

Steven Isaacs, the technology teacher and technology specialist at the school noted how exciting and beneficial this entire competition is.

"The communication component is huge as well as strategizing," Isaacs said. "It’s very exciting to watch and the live stream will be full commentaries — just like watching the Super Bowl."

The event plays "like any team sport," Satter said.

The semifinals will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday followed by the grand finals from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Neighbors can tune and watch live as Ridge competes by following this link twitch.tv/esportsfed.

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