ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul Overwatch team (0-1) dropped their first ever match on Sunday night, losing 2-0 to the University of Illinois at Chicago in the first week of the 2020 Overwatch Collegiate Championship.

The team's starters for their inaugural game consisted of Jack Krueger, Richard Mahle, Maddison Buchanan, Ian Bergstrom, Matthew Walker, and Chufu Thao.

In the first match, the Bears took on the Wildfire in a game of control on the map Ilios. Control is an objective-based game mode in which each time fights to capture and control a central objective. A team wins the round when they are able to successfully capture the objective, and each match is played in a best-of-three format. The Wildfire got off to a hot start, winning the first two rounds of control and taking the match 2-0.

In the second match, the teams faced off in a game of escort on the map Rialto. Escort is a game mode in which the attacking team attempts to escort a payload to a delivery point while the defending team attempts to halt the progress of the payload. Each team gets one opportunity to play both offense and defense during a match. The Bears went on offense in the first round, escorting the payload almost to the first checkpoint before the Wildfire were able to stop their progress. Once the Wildfire halted the payload and set up their defenses, they were able to run out the timer and win the first round. In round two, with the Bears on defense, the Wildfire were able to take control of crucial choke points and escort the payload all the way to the delivery point, winning the match 2-0 and completing the sweep over the Bears.

The Golden Bears will return to action next Sunday as they will take on an opponent to be determined.