CONNECTIVITY ISSUES disrupted the remaining VALORANT games, bringing the second day of the inaugural UAAP esports tournament to a pause on Wednesday, Aug. 14.
The UST Teletigers Esports Club’s (UST TGR) VALORANT team absorbed its first defeat after a close match with the UP Fighting Maroons, 12-14, at the Areté, Ateneo de Manila University.
With Haven as the first map, UST TGR managed to win its first pistol round of the tournament with an aggressive mid-push led by team captain John Matthew “Mattheee” Cuaresma to gain a strong start, 1-0.
The Teletigers maintained their momentum, gaining a commanding seven-round lead after parading their reactive defense and solid retakes, 8-1.
Crucial mistakes begin to show late in the first half, with UP capitalizing on UST’s defense to win three consecutive rounds, 8-4.
The Fighting Maroons continued to close the gap, 9-8, but Teletiger Damien Santos’ heroics on Breach prevented a late-game deadlock.
Nearing match-point, UST failed to match UP’s aggressiveness, bringing the match into an overtime, 12-all. UP eventually pulled away, overcoming a seven-round deficit to steal the first game, 12-14.
The second map in Ascent saw the Teletigers playing catch-up by the end of the first half, 5-7. Things took a turn when UST shifted the momentum, taking full control of site A to get ahead by one, 9-8.
With both teams looking to secure match-point at 11-all, UAAP halted the rest of the match because of technical difficulties. This resulted in the rescheduling of the remaining games in the VALORANT tournament.
“There were lots of errors and miscommunications… the pressure really got to us when we went to overtime that’s why we lost,” Cuaresma told The Flame.
“If we ever make it into the playoffs, we hope that we do everything that we practiced for a month,” he added.
The remaining matches will be held on Aug. 15. behind closed doors at Dark League Studios. F
