The Wadsworth Grizzlies esports team has a new room for the team to practice and compete in.

 This room is located in the high school and replaced the extended learning lab in the 1500 hallway. Grizzlies esports has been around since 2024, and in its inaugural season of the program, the team advanced to regionals, going  9-2 in matches played.

Last season, the team received two Nintendo Switches from the high school that were used to play all of the games. The team now has 12 gaming computers and multiple TVs. These computers give a larger choice of games that people on the team can choose to play. These new games include Valorant and Marvel Rivals. Valorant is a first-person shooter where two teams control 5 agents against each other. Marvel Rivals is a 3rd person shooter using Marvel superheroes in a similar manner to games like Overwatch. 

“We built 12 gaming PC’s with high refresh monitors,” Michael Kuethe said, the head coach of the esports team.

Kuethe started the program last year and is now even compiling footage of the kids playing in matches to send to college esports teams.

“I’m saving all the footage to build highlight reels, so when they are ready to apply at colleges, they’ll have footage to submit,” Kuethe said.

The money to set up the room and purchase all the equipment was provided by donations from CityLink and Kimmel’s Heating and Air Conditioning.

Jon Dailey is a junior at WHS and a member of the esports team since last year. 

“We got two more TVs, we got more decorations, and a lot more people,” Dailey said about the team going into the start of the season.

Dailey is expecting a huge increase in the number of people who want to participate in the team.

“We already have more than double the people we had last year,” Dailey said. 

The team is already practicing in the new facility every day from 2:30-4:00 after school as the fall season continues.