DANVILLE, Va. — The spring semester has been an exciting time for Averett University's esports team. One of its teams had an undefeated regular season and several members of the team recently went to its first in-person event in several years.
 
Averett's Rainbow Six Siege team playing the NECC Navigators Division is currently undefeated through the regular season and is tentatively scheduled to begin the playoffs on April 18. It has been a milestone year for the Rainbow Six team, which completed its first undefeated season in the history of the Averett esports program.
 
"I am very proud of what they have accomplished," Averett Director of Esports Colton Paul said. "Not just the undefeated season, but how they bounce back and have stuck together. What makes this team special is their bond. They have been together for a long time. … They have won big games, lost some in the process and have grown together over the last few years."

Senior Chris Sabin said the feeling of playing together as a team and going undefeated is special.
"The chemistry we have between each other, we all live together and play together makes it easy to know what your teammates are about to do," Sabin said. "We are going to rewatch the film of the teams we played and see what we did wrong in each round we lost and improve on that."
 
Junior Theo Dickinson noted that the team's chemistry has played a big factor in the team's success this spring.
 
"Living with most of my teammates, it makes it easier to play and compete with people who'd I call family," Dickinson said. "As well our mechanical skills and game knowledge put us past other teams competing against us. Our team plans on running ranked matchess to focus on our mechanical skills and stats in preparation for playoffs."
 
That chemistry is big when it comes to communication, which is needed to be successful in Rainbow Six.
 
"We have some of the best communication I have personally ever seen," junior Matthew Ulishney said. "It's great saying a callout and all of my teammates know where I'm talking about."
 
Averett's esports team will host watch parties for the playoffs and stream the matches on its Twitch channel.
 
 
Averett's esports team also traveled to the University of Tennessee for a LAN event called VoLAN on April 1-2. The event featured some large Division I teams such as University of Alabama, Clemson University and the Rainbow Six collegiate national champion University of Georgia.
 
The Cougars took on Clemson, Tennessee and Georgia. Averett knocked off Tennessee Tech and made it to the winner's quarterfinals before facing Clemson and Georgia back to back in the double-elimination event. Paul said that while Averett lost to most of the larger Division I schools, they made the matches interesting and competitive.