MAAC 2023 Championship: Here are the five winners across titles

Over March 9th through 11th, the 2023 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Esports Championships were held in The Showboat Hotel in Atlantic City. The three days of competition were action-packed and had some glorifying and heartbreaking wins and losses for the ten teams that competed.

The five titles featured at the MAAC Esports Championships:

This tournament has been a culmination of competition starting all the way back in the Fall. Some teams had waited an entire semester for their shot at the MAAC Esports Championship trophy. It all came down to this.

Let's take a look back at how the brackets unfolded into crowning the five 2023 MAAC Esports Champions and the MVP performances that led the way for the teams!

Over the three days of bracket play it all came down to a rematch of last year's Rocket League Championship. After two straight years of being runners-up, Fairfield University finally secured their first MAAC Rocket League Championship. The Stags were able to finish the year undefeated (11-0) and only dropped 6 games total throughout the year.

Fairfield was led by MVP and Team Captain Matthew “Matter” Baker after stellar performances throughout the weekend. The MVP had nearly two goals a game in the grand finals. The performance by Matter, William “Skout” Duffy, Luke “Lawexpress” Wagher secured Fairfield their first MAAC Esports Championship across any title. They will look to repeat the same result next season as they head into next Fall on an undefeated streak.

Top seed Marist College and the second seed Quinnipiac University met up in the first MAAC VALORANT Finals. Marist was in the driver's seat early after a dominating map one on fracture. Marist started the finals with a 13-1 win against Quinnipiac on fracture. After that first game, Marist had to think the series and championship were in the bag.

Icebox was the second map on the plate. After a 6-6 half, Quinnipiac was feeling comfortable switching to the defensive side. The map ended up going into overtime and Quinnipiac secured the map win 14-12. 

Pearl became the decider for the series. Quinnipiac took an early lead in the first half 9-3 and the curse almost rang true. However, right at the score 11-12, Quinnipiac took the victory and the championship after three huge kills from Fox “Fox” Perelson and a perfect rolling thunder from Wayne Anythony “Anton” Thompson.

An MVP performance from duelist player Javier “Torn” Flores secured the map wins for Quinnipiac and allowed them to take home the first-ever MAAC VALORANT Championship Trophy. This championship win gave Quinnipiac their second MAAC Championship overall.

After a long-fought two semesters of double round-robin play it all came down to a match between first seed Quinnipiac and second seed Siena College. Another rematch for the ages as Siena was the only team to hand Quinnipiac a loss during the regular season. Siena looked to start strong early by sending out Nicholas “Night” Galvam’s Shulk. However, Quinnipiac’s Chris “Moat” responded with Terry and put Quinnipiac in an early 5-1 lead. 

Quinnipiac kept the dominance rolling with Dillon “GRIT” Diaspro’s Bowser Jr. as they secured an 11-1 lead after beating Siena’s Richie “EDGEai” Myers.

To follow such a dominant performance from GRIT, Quinnipiac sent out Theo “Soulcake” Offerman’s Joker with a chance to win the championship in set three. To answer the threat, Siena sent out Brad “GinjaNinja” McCaffrey’s Bowser and they delivered. The Bowser was able to beat Soulcake’s Joker and Sonic and put Siena in reaching distance to Quinnipiac’s 6-11 lead.

With a chance to tie it up and send it to game five, Siena sent out Brennan “LaX” Burkha’s Fox. Unfortunately for Sienna, LaX was not enough to stop Quinnipiac’s captain Jonathan “Bakko” Mason. In the third set, Bakko solidified the championship victory for Quinnipiac and brought them their second Super Smash Bros. Ultimate title two years in a row. On top of that Bakko was awarded MVP after an amazing season and playoff performance. This win also awarded the third MAAC Esports Championship in Quinnipiac esports program history.

Marist made it back to the grand finals looking for their fourth MAAC Overwatch Championship. On the other side of the bracket, the number one seed Mount St. Mary’s dominated their way through the bracket into the finals continuing their undefeated season. The last time these two teams met in the regular season Marist only took one map off Mount St. Mary’s on the official MAAC Esports stream.

Antarctic Peninsula was the first map these teams faced off on and although the map may look cold Mount St. Mary’s came out hot and secured the first map 2-0. King’s Row was next on the plate and Marist was looking to answer. Mount Esports pushed the cart to all three checkpoints in four minutes and twenty-two seconds. This put Marist with their backs against the wall. However, Traitors on the Zarya switch was able to answer and put the map into overtime. Mount Esports responded in overtime after a long cart push from Marist and put Mount Esports up 2-0 in the series.

To try and start the reverse sweep Marist needed to come out and win map 3, circuit royal. However, Mount Esports made sure to close the series out. Player-voted MVP and Championship MVP Brady “Zerial” Klodaski prevented any push Marist had on the cart during overtime after securing two major backline support kills. Mount only needed one minute of the four they had to work with to secure their first MAAC Esports Championship in sweeping fashion.

Manhattan looked like clear favorites heading into the grand finals. They had dominated the rift during the regular season going undefeated and looking to secure the championship against Iona. Iona on the other hand had other ideas. With masterful play from championship MVP Eric “Diagram” Lui, the Jaspers of Manhattan could not handle the hits from all four sides that Diagram was showcasing on the Jhin.

Iona took an early lead after winning game one with a 13/3/5 performance from Diagram in the bot lane. Manhattan responded in game two with early kills going over to top laner “Hyung Jae” and jungler “IamExcel”. A massive teleport from Hyung Jae around the 18-minute mark led to a Mordekaiser snowball and game two victory for Manhattan.

To end the series in game three, Iona jungler ThatDerpyBirdgot got aggressive and was able to secure an early double kill for Diagram in the bot lane. Later fights allowed Diagram to continue the slaughter as he picked double kill after double kill and ended the game 19/2/10 and winning the MAAC League of Legends championship by the side of his teammates.

Stay tuned on esports.gg for more MAAC Esports news and updates.