Scott Barrett / ST. LOUIS, MO — Washington University at St. Louis started off the season with an in-state rivalry,  playing the University of Missouri during the first week of the Collegiate Starleague, going 3-1 against the Tigers.  Neither team pulled any punches, both electing to field their top ranked players for this week’s matches.  Zach Al-Shafei, Lesley Chen, Kyle Wanzek, Spencer Fish and Ivan Seto played for WUSTL, facing off against Keegan Haines, Joseph Larson, Kevin Costello, Ryan Engel and Daniel Hoefel for Mizzou.

Game one was on MLG Antiga Shipyard, with Zach “KoomasiBlue” Al-Shafei playing as Protoss in the bottom position facing off against Keegan “OilyCucumber” Haines, spawning as Zerg in the top position.  Washington opens 1-gateway into fast expansion and throws down a stargate immediately afterwards.  Mizzou, having scouted the fast expansion, takes a quick third base and continues to amass a large number of drones.  A scouting overlord does manage to see the stargate before too many void rays are on the map, which prompts both a hydra den and spire from the Zerg player, as well as several spore crawlers.  A brief poke by a single void ray to the Zerg third base does no damage and the void ray ends up getting picked off minutes later by hydralisks in the middle of the map.  Sensing the time has come, Al-Shafei pushes out with three voidrays, and a large number of sentries and stalkers.  Zerglings with a handful of hydralisks and mutalisks as support clash against the Protoss army in the Zerg third base but their numbers are too few and Protoss wipes out the entire third base, including the drones thanks to excellently placed force fields. Mizzou types out shortly thereafter.

Scott Barrett / ST. LOUIS, MO — Game two was on MLG iCCup Testbug, with Kyle “Adagio” Wanzek playing as Terran in the bottom position against Joseph “RainDance” Larson as Protoss in the top position.  Adagio opens 1-rax expand with a bunker at the front of his natural, which upon being scouted by RainDance prompts a fast expansion as well, which transitions into 4-gate robo.  Protoss pushes out with a good number of gateway units and cleans up a small force of marines and marauders at the watch tower in the middle before returning home to take out all nearby destructible rocks.  Mizzou begins constructing colossi out of a single robotics facility, supported by a good number of gateway units, while Washington amasses a frighteningly large marine/marauder/medivac force with vikings for support.  The gold base is denied by the Terran force while a drop to the main manages to take out the robotics bay, severely slowing colossus production.  The two players clash in the middle, and while the colossi for Mizzou do massive amounts of damage, the numbers of the Protoss force are far too few and Terran takes the battle and shortly their after the game.

The 2v2 match was on Ruins of Tarsonis, with Lesley “flcMilotic” Chen and Ivan “ChocoGiant” Seto as Terran/Zerg for Washington in the top position against Kevin “FluidKMC” Costello and Ryan “FluidGiraffe” Engel as Terran/Protoss for Mizzou in the bottom position.  Washington opens super aggressively with a roach rush plus 6-rax marine, but Mizzou has opted for marauders and fast immortals which make quick work of the roaches, leaving just a handful of marines.  Sensing that their push has not done the damage necessary to pay for itself, Washington tries a second push through Protoss players backdoor rocks, but this too is cleaned up without taking too many losses by Mizzou.  Washington then goes to expand, but Mizzou arrives shortly thereafter with a large bio army and gateway/colossus.  Washington responds with a well executed and perfectly timed “gg.”

Game four on MLG Dual Sight pits Spencer “Stryker” Fish as Zerg in the bottom-left against Daniel “Ushiromiya” Hoefel as Protoss in the top-right position.  Mizzou opens 3-gate expand while Stryker for Washington also expands and maintains map control with a handful of zerglings.  Both players sit back defensively as they transition into their mid-game strategies, as roaches with burrow and burrow-move begin to come out for Zerg and immortals begin trickling out for Protoss.  A few pokes to the Protoss natural do no damage but provide good intel for Stryker and allow him to secure his 3rd comfortably.  Having now mustered a sizable stalker/sentry force with a couple of immortals as support, Protoss decides to push the Zerg natural.  Due to his superior map presence, Stryker is able to see the push coming and a well timed zergling counter-attack cuts off reinforcements and manages to kill 35 workers in the Protoss main while also delaying the push.  Sensing that he must immediately counter to stay in the game, Hoefel pushes with his full force into the Zerg natural, but burrow roaches and infestors are ready to greet them, and Protoss has even forgot to bring his observer.  The push is easily defended and Washington takes the series.

Download the replays here, or watch a commentated VOD below:

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