Davenport announces trifecta of rosters

Following last week's monumental announcement that Davenport University would be the first collegiate team to play in ESL Challenger League, the Michigan-based university announced their lineups for ECL, ESEA Advanced, and ESEA Open, respectively on Tuesday. A notable exemption from all three lineups is former Cloud9 player Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek who was announced to be joining the program back on June 1, however Davenport's coach, Colin "koi" Thor expanded on Twitter citing family visa issues preventing the South African from joining. It is also worth noting that koi teased that the program was still in the process of scouting overseas talent.

Davenport will be represented in ECL Season 42 by a familiar squad as they retain four of the five players that concluded ESEA Season 41. The only new face that will be joining the lineup is European import Denis "swicher" Baranov. The Estonian rifler comes into the lineup in place of Brandon "BeBO" Miller, joining the quartet of Spencer "Pugg" Moore, Collin "CoJoMo" Moren, Tommy "corn" Eckhart and Nate "spek" Smith. With their newest addition, this lineup will be hoping to make a big impression in their ECL debut following an impressive 11-3 record in ESEA Advanced Season 41.

As for the second roster announced, BeBO will be joined by John "arcade" Rogel, Ryan "tactile" Branigan, Lane "RiFT" Hardesty and Ben "N07" Pringle. This lineup, which will be going by Davenport University D2, will be competing in ESEA Advanced Season 42. The experience levels of the lineup vary slightly, with arcade, tactile and BeBO all having multiple seasons in Advanced under their belts, whereas this will be the first venture into the division for N07 and RiFT. It appears they will face a baptism by fire, with their first scheduled game in Advanced being against paiN.

The third, and final, lineup that the University program will be fielding in ESEA is the Davenport University D3 team, which will be competing in ESEA Open. When asked about the lineup, coach koi told Dust2us that "we're running a program called PTE (Panther Training Environment) which is based around taking the average CSGO player and building them into a Main-ish player. We work with players individually if they're not quite cut out for team CS yet at the level we're aiming for." The former MOUZ analyst/assistant coach also added that he has high hopes for the team, with promotion to Main being the goal for this season, however he would be happy with promotion to Intermediate.

Next season, Davenport will be represented by the following lineups:

Davenport University D1:

• Spencer "Pugg" Moore

• Collin "CoJoMo" Moren

• Tommy "corn" Eckhart

• Nate "spek" Smith

• Denis "swicher" Baranov

• Colin "koi" Thor (Head Coach)

• Grant "GKaay" Kino (Assistant Coach)

Davenport University D2:

• Brandon "BeBO" Miller

• John "arcade" Rogel

• Ryan "tactile" Branigan

• Lane "RiFT" Hardesty

• Ben "N07" Pringle

Davenport University D3:

• Luke "BeanieHut" Doorn

• Ian "Fraq-KTR" Burr

• Anna "lyeku" Lu

• Austin "Tex^" Berget

• Owen "OwenWC" Clearwater

• Jt "Adeft" Mullins