Winthrop Esports Teams Bring Home Big South Trophies (04/01/26)

HIGHLIGHTS

• Hosted by Radford University on March 28-29, the championship featured competition in four games: League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League and Valorant. Winthrop also won the titles in 2025.
• Among the participating schools were Radford, University of North Carolina Asheville, Charleston Southern and High Point.

RADFORD, VIRGINIA - Winthrop University dominated the recent 2026 Big South Esports Championship, winning all four tournament titles and the overall championship.

Hosted by Radford University on March 28-29, the championship featured competition in four games: League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League and Valorant. Winthrop also won the titles in 2025.

Among the participating schools were Radford, University of North Carolina Asheville, Charleston Southern and High Point.

Winthrop's strategy for the Big South Tournament was to send second and even third string teams to compete and use its professional level players to act as coaches.

Here are the Winthrop teams:

League of Legends - Damien "Bluetrainbandit" Pannebaker, Jonah "Behemoth" Vedral, Elijah "Red" Dewalt, Marc "Beep" Jackson Jr. and Braydon "Prod" Rovito - Season MVP. Coach Kodie "mesmerism" Hathaway worked with the team.

Valorant - Dimitris "H0llywood" Brikas, Ethan "Echo" Cho, Cason "Case" Harris - Season MVP, Rayanne "Grec" Tellas and Jayce "Jayce" Jurgilanis. Coach Justin Milani helped the team.

Rocket League - Barry "nekarri" Wesoly, Jack "phantom" Melton - Season MVP, and Ezequiel "Monsterking" Iglesia

Overwatch - Jordan "KMJ" Felker - Season MVP, Nathan "Orion" Jagh, Ali "Ali" Salahedin, Hyuna "PsychoStreet" Lee, and Jared "Pr0ven" Toland. Coach William Ohlstein advised the group.

For more information, contact Max Prosser at [email protected].