Greenwood, S.C. - Following their conference championship over the University of Florida last Fall, Lander's Marvel Rivals team clinched the NECC East regular season championship with a 3-1 win over the University of Georgia on Tuesday night.

Both teams entered the contest undefeated, with Georgia rated as the preseason #1 in the power rankings. The first map of the series was Celestial Husk, which Georgia won 2-1 in a tightly contested battle. From there, adjustments were made by Lander in the draft phase entering into Hall of Djalia for Map 2.

"We made adjustments going into the second map, we saw a weakness in their comp and were able to exploit it. From there, we just hit the same spot until the series was over." Bearcats Head Coach Billy Howard said after the series. "Our character pools are deep, it doesn't matter what they ban, we have an answer for everything."

Coming off of a 48 assist performance in map 2, Chad Burger had a flawless run on Midtown with no deaths, going 12/0/17 and leading the supports in healing. Lander would win the Convoy map 1-0 after a stout defensive hold made their offensive push very easy to claim a 2-1 series lead.

Map 4 was dominated by the tank line for Lander, with an MVP performance from Aiden McClain and a clutch play from Michael Kukucka to stall the point with Georgia in overtime. After a death in the previous fight and Georgia about to win the point, Kukucka swapped to Venom to swing across map and stall just long enough for the team to respawn, and a double-kill by Kyle Gheen on Spider-Man sealed the Bulldogs fate. Jason Tavares added a 24/4/0 scoreline with 14 final hits and Andre Gonzalez lead the team in healing to give Lander a 3-1 victory.

The win propelled Lander Esports to their 10th regular season championship in the last 3 years under Coach Howard. The undefeated Rivals team will face off against a winless University of South Carolina squad on Tuesday in the final week of the regular season.

VOD vs. University of Georgia