Penn-Trafford students earn scholarship money in esports tournament, expand club

Penn-Trafford High School has expanded further into the esports scene.

Penn-Trafford began participating in competitions in the spring 2020 after launching its Esports Club.

This summer, students had the opportunity to play for scholarship money.

From July 15 to 17, Penn-Trafford Esports Club coordinator and history teacher John Carlisle took six of his students to TEC CON All Stars — an esports tournament for high school students hosted by the Esport Company, a company with high school and collegiate leagues.

The tournament took place at 1st Summit Arena in Johnstown, offering $10,000 total in scholarships to participants. Carlisle said each student walked away with at least $200 to $300, with winners earning around $500.

Esports refers to the competitive playing of video games in front of an audience. With more matches and tournament opportunities opening up for high schoolers, the sport is now growing from its collegiate and professional levels.

Carlisle said there are about 30 to 40 students at Penn-Trafford that play competitively through the Esports Club. Six of these students were selected to represent the school at TEC CON All Stars — three for Rocket League and three for Valorant.

The tournament gathered 35 top-ranking high school esports players from across 12 school districts to compete in at least one of three games — Rocket League, Overwatch and Valorant. These students were selected based on factors like number of kills achieved, impact in the game, overall performance and consistency.

In addition to the All Stars competition, the tournament also included an opportunity for students to network with collegiate Esports teams and coaches.

Each of the players were assigned to either the red team, coached by Forest Hills, or the black team, coached by Carlisle. The black teams for Rocket League and Valorant, which ended up winning their respective sections of the tournament, each had two Penn-Trafford students on their roster.

After undefeated fall and spring seasons for Penn-Trafford’s Valorant team, Connor Adomaitis said the victory at TEC CON All Stars was everything he’d hoped it would be.

“TEC CON was great. Just the atmosphere of being in a tournament setting,” Adomaitis, a 2022 graduate, said. “It was always something I dreamed of.”

With one year of competitive esports under his belt, Adomaitis, of Penn Township, will attend St. Francis University in Loretto to compete on scholarship with the Valorant team this fall.

“It’s a great feeling — being able to succeed in something like that, something that I truly enjoy doing and like putting time into and being able to put money toward college by doing it,” Adomaitis said.

Mirroring this sentiment, Valorant teammate Brayden Seech said it is his goal to pursue esports in college.

“Having the experience to be able to go to college to play a video game and have it be worth something is just amazing, but then also there is the scholarship aspect of it,” said Seech, a rising junior at Penn-Trafford. “I think if I can get scholarship money to play a game that I like to play for fun, (that is) exactly what I’m looking for.”

Although Seech has two years of high school remaining, he is considering playing esports at St. Francis or Mt. Aloysius universities. He said he never would have expected how “massive” esports would become.

“Back whenever I used to watch (esports), it was just the best of the best competing for money,” Seech, of Penn Township, said. “I never thought I would get to have any of those experiences myself.”

Adomaitis said collegiate involvement in esports is becoming even more beneficial given the sport’s professional growth.

Even if a student opts out of playing for a professional team, like the Pittsburgh Knights, there are a plethora of jobs available in the field — including coaching, owning a team, facilitating the digital livestream for matches and designing tournaments.

Valorant player Emily Truong, a rising junior at Penn-Trafford, said she plans to study computer science in college, and she hopes to involve esports in her experience somehow. After her first year of playing competitively, she said esports has helped her grow as a person.

“I never expected to do something I really love and have colleges come up to me and offer me money to keep doing it,” Truong, of Jeannette, said. “TEC All Stars brought that into my life.”

Although she anticipates a hefty homework load in her junior year, Truong said she is enrolled in an esports class at Penn-Trafford that she hopes will allow her time to hone in on her craft.

Going into the coming academic year, Seech said the focus for Penn-Trafford’s esports teams is on finding newcomers to fill the shoes of the players who graduated this past spring.

In the recruitment process, Carlisle said he hopes to convey to students that esports is about “becoming a better human through competition.” He said he has found this to be especially meaningful for students who are not interested in athletics.

“I’m really excited to see the next wave come up,” Carlisle said.