The Niles North Rocket League eSports team traveled to Evergreen Park Community High School on April 29, 2023, to compete in the IHSA State Finals Tournament. 

Their first series was played against Lane Tech. Unfortunately, Lane Tech won the first two games in the best-of-3 series. 

 Prior to this series, problems started to occur. Teammate Max Weil’s headphones were not suitable for the computers at EPCHS. Fortunately, Max was able to borrow a pair of headphones from another school competing. Along with this issue, Max was unable to sit with the rest of the team due to spacing constraints. Their main communication method, Discord, was blocked on the school’s network, leaving them to use Rocket League in-game voice chat. 

“We had to use the voice chat that the game provides and it’s really delayed so it threw us off even more,” Senior Max Weil said. 

The tournament was in a double-elimination format. For their second game, they would be playing Plainfield East. This time they were able to sit all together but were not able to borrow headphones and communicate with each other. Sadly, they lost their second best-of-3 series against PEHS. Niles North ended up finishing 12th-16th at State Finals. 

“I felt very disappointed in the way we performed and the way the tournament was run, everything felt very last minute and they were even setting up the spectator section as the games were going on,” junior Ashton Rara said. “Despite our performance, this was a thrilling, humbling, and unforgettable experience.”