In their first full season in the Iowa High School E-Sports Association, Lone Tree wasted no time making their presence known, competing at the State Spring Finals for the second-straight year. The Lions came away from the competition with two top-ten finishes, earning sixth in SMITE, and ninth in Mario Kart Teams.

The competition was held at the Mid-American RecPlex in Des Moines. Lone Tree competed in two different games during the state finals, joining just one other Iowa school to do so. The Lions were the only team with players competing in more than one title.

Leading the Mario Kart teams were senior captains Jack Buser and Mitchell Koedam. They were joined by juniors William Rockafellow, Weston Waldschmidt, and Dom Graap, along with freshmen Nic Bowman and Cade Willoz. Rockafellow captained the SMITE team, which Koedam and Graap played as well. Helping to capture the sixth-place finish was also senior Jadin Grieser, sophomore Lukas Fuhrmeister, and freshman Vaughn Judge.

Coach for the Lions, Jessica Howard, shared her feelings on the team’s success, as well as the support from the Lone Tree Community. “I just want to say how proud I am of all my students and how proud I am of our players. Our parents really showed up. We probably had the most amount of people there watching us. Our parents made the trip up to Des Moines and [I’m] just so thankful that we have such a dedicated E-Sports support system.”

Howard encouraged students interested in being a part of the E-Sports fall season to contact her when the new school year begins.