Radford top Syracuse Esports Orange Jam 2026

This weekend Syracuse Esports hosted their second-annual Orange Jam collegiate tournament at Syracuse University, with eight top collegiate teams competing in the LAN tournament. In a surprise result from the stacked tournament, Radford University ended up taking the crown despite heading into the event as the second-lowest ranked team per College Counter's collegiate power rankings.

The event was seeded off of College Counter's December 7th ranking update, with Ashland and Carnegie Mellon garnering the top seeds in their groups due to being ranked second and third in the power rankings, respectively. Meanwhile, the underdogs of Radford started the event as the lowest seed in Group B due to being ranked 18th in the power rankings.

Day one of the tournament saw the eight teams in attendance play two Bo1s against the other three teams in their group to determine seeding for the playoffs bracket. The largest surprise to come from this stage of the tournament was a poor performance from Carnegie Mellon, with the top-ranked team finishing groups with a 2-4 record.

Moving into playoffs, Carnegie Mellon were in far better form as the team dispatched Ashland 2-1 while Radford smashed Ohio State 2-0, RIT claimed a close 2-1 series over Northeastern, and Syracuse took down Drexel 2-0.

In the semifinals Syracuse were the first team to lock in a spot in the grand finals via a 2-0 showing against regional rivals RIT while on the other side of the bracket Radford continued their winning ways with a 2-0 win over Carnegie Mellon.

With the finals set, Syracuse started the finals in a hot fashion, putting up a dominant 13-7 win on Inferno to start the Bo3 series. Powered by 17 kills from Will "WetWillie" Blackwood, Radford were able to tie up the series with a 13-3 on Mirage, forcing the grand finals onto Nuke. This final ended proved to be decisive for Radford as they played a near-perfect CT-side to end the half up 10-2. Despite efforts by Syracuse to answer back on their own CT-side, Radford stayed ahead and closed out the map 13-7 to win the Orange Jam!

The top four at the 2026 Orange Jam consists of:

1st - Radford University - (WetWillie, Blaine, tmh331, Kranoli, Neighborly)
2nd - Syracuse Orange - (kmrn, bird1337, Carbyn, sensh1, werydan1)
3rd/4th - RIT Orange - (xCaptain, Sham, coza, Benjitora, hoax)
3rd/4th - Carnegie Mellon - (cobalt, meltyy, CTinT, w0nderb1t, Eddie_Comet)