On the first day of the League of Legends College Championship, several schools from across North America competed to earn a spot in the semifinals and get one step closer to becoming the collegiate kings of LoL. After an action-packed day of matchups, here's how the quarterfinals played out.
After the action kicked off with the University of Toronto taking down Simon Fraser University in a 2-1 series win, followed by Carnegie Mellon University taking a clean 2-0 sweep over Texas A&M, the third series of the day featured a clash of uLoL titans between Robert Morris University and University of Maryland. Game 1 started with RMU finding early kills to get ahead, but UMD stayed relevant by punishing RMU's over-aggression. UMD turned a 23-minute teamfight that was initiated by RMU into the gold lead. UMD continued its snowball by finding kills, an Infernal Drake and a Baron at the 22-minute mark. UMD jungler Winston "tahx" Zhou posted a 9/3/10 KDA as Rengar, and was the force that allowed UMD to take down Baron and then close out the game to go up 1-0 in the series.
Game 2 of the series kicked off with RMU making a well-played dive in the bot lane to find first blood and the early lead. RMU rotated around the map extremely well compared to UMD, making plays to knock down turrets while UMD looked lost. A 16-minute push with the new Rift Herald allowed RMU to find kills and an inhibitor, eventually wrapping up the Game 2 win led by mid laner Gilette posting a 10/1/7 KDA as Taliyah.
The final game between the two teams started off with UMD finding first blood, but the gold lead went in RMU's favor due to a farm advantage. RMU then rotated around the map, completely dominating the early-mid game. After mounting a sizable gold lead at the 20-minute mark, UMD started fighting back and finding kills on all members of RMU. RMU was able to stabilize its lead after taking a 4-for-0 teamfight and a Baron at 30 minutes. After some more pushing from UMD, RMU found picks in the mad lane to press on to win the series 2-1.
The final series of the day between Maryville University and University of British Columbia began relatively quietly compared to the typical uLoL match. UBC eventually found a lead by punishing some over-aggression by MU, but MU fought back. MU picked up some kills and a turret, but couldn't stop UBC from increasing its gold lead. UBC ran around the map in the late game, picking off MU around 33 minutes, but threw the opportunity to win the game by chasing kills instead of towers. Two minutes later, UBC managed to end the game with a backdoor Nexus kill by top laner Colton "CJ" Popowich's Trundle.
The second game of the series started off in favor of MU due to it forcing a dive in the top lane with poor reaction from UBC. MU slowly choked out UBC throughout the game to find a sizable lead. After finding multiple picks, after the 20-minute mark, MU was able to set up vision and lane control to get into the Baron pit. Off the back of a 29-minute Baron, MU was able to even out the series at 1-1.
The decider game for the series was very scrappy initially, with both teams fighting often. Despite being down in kills at the 10-minute mark, MU was up 1.5k-gold due to having taken down two towers plus farm advantages. MU found objective leads across the map, leading to a massive 9k gold lead at the 20-minute mark. After taking down Baron at the 22-minute mark, MU seamlessly pushed down mid while taking down members of UBC to sail on to the semifinals with a 2-1 victory.
The action continues Friday as Carnegie Mellon University squares off against University of Toronto at 3 p.m ET.