Herkimer College Call of Duty team in NJCAA's national Esports semifinals

HERKIMER – Herkimer College’s Esports team is quietly making quite a run in the school’s first season of intercollegiate NJCAA competition.The team of freshmen Christian Mandia and Jayden Vargas has advanced to the semifinals of the national Call of Duty: Modern Warfare invitational tournament. Mandia, a Whitesboro High School graduate from Utica, and Vargas from the Bronx Academy of Software Engineering are a perfect 7-0 this season following last week’s 4-3 quarterfinal victory over a team from Gogebic Community College in Ironwood, Michigan.Mandia and Vargas, seeded fourth entering the tournament, play again Monday evening against the top seeds from the University of South Carolina-Sumter.The semifinal starts at 6 p.m. and can be viewed on Herkimer’s Twitch channel at twitch.tv/herkimer_generals_esports.The semifinal winner will play for the national championship later in the evening against the winner of the other semifinal between Central Wyoming College and California’s Irvine Valley College.Herkimer’s Generals are coached by Frank Drapalski, a systems programmer/analyst, and Joshua Lanza, a technical assistant for the Academic Support Center.This is the second year that Esports has been contested by the NJCAA. While the 2021 tournament is considered an invitational, there are plans to make it an official event next year.Thirty-three new programs…
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