Saints Sweep Canadian Esports Nationals

The St. Clair Saints Esports program collected 5 National Championships over the weekend, with a clean sweep of the annual Canadian Esports Nationals.

The Saints won National Championships in Call of Duty, Overwatch and Rocket League for the second-straight year, while also claiming victories in League of Legends and VALORANT for the first time.

"Our players and coaches have bought into the vision and the results demonstrate just how solid of a foundation we have built over the last 6 years with the program,” said Esports Director Shaun Byrne. “I know a few schools do not enjoy having to see the Saints logo on all 5 championship banners so I anticipate a new sense of urgency in a lot of programs to rise up and challenge our dominance in 2024.”

In Call of Duty, the Saints were unstoppable with victories over the University of Ottawa and Carleton University on route to a dominant win over York University in the Grand Finals.

The Saints Overwatch team took the momentum into their championship run with series sweeps over the University of Toronto and York University. In the Grand Finals, they took on the University of Waterloo where the outcome was no different as the Saints swept the series to earn the National Championship.

In Rocket League, the Saints battled past the University of Windsor and Conestoga College to face-off against the University of Ottawa in the Grand Finals. The Saints found themselves down 3-0 in the Best-of-7 series, but mounted one of the most impressive comebacks in the program’s history. The team clawed back one game at a time and completed the reverse sweep to take the series and win the National Championship with a 4-3 win.

In League of Legends, the Saints looked to improve on last year’s result where they finished in 4th place after losing to the University of Waterloo in the semifinals. The team marched past the University of Calgary and University of Toronto-Mississauga to book a rematch with Waterloo in the Grand Finals. In a hard-fought series, the Saints avenged last year’s loss to earn the team’s first National Championship.

In the final match, the Saints Academy VALORANT team took center stage to represent St. Clair College in the Canadian Esports Nationals. With the Saints Varsity team in Istanbul representing Team Canada in the Red Bull Campus Clutch World Finals, the program’s secondary roster stepped up to flex the depth of St. Clair’s VALORANT talent.

The Saints Academy team didn’t let the opportunity go to waste as they mowed through Brock University and the University of Waterloo to match up against Western University in the Grand Finals. It was a back-and-forth battle between the two with Western taking an early lead in the series. Down, but not out, the Saints mounted a comeback in the final game of the series to earn the 2-1 victory to claim the National Championship and to complete the Saints sweep of the Canadian Esports Nationals.

38 schools and 103 teams from across Canada took part in the 2nd Annual Canadian Esports National Tournament.