In just their first season with an official E-Sports team, Lone Tree High School proudly finished fourth in their first state tournament.

Coach Jessica Howard started having her varsity players practice in late February and started competing in March, where varsity players would play the online video game “Smite”.

Matt Fellows, senior captain, led a varsity team that was composed of six other players: junior Javid Smith, senior Kyle Zaruba, senior Adam Knock, freshman Lukas Fuhmeister, sophomore Dominic Graap, and sophomore William Rockafellow.

Most of the practices took place on Tuesdays from 3:15 p.m. until 5:00 p.m., but Coach Howard expected her varsity players to practice a significant amount of time on their own too.

During their first season, Lone Tree won very important matches against Bettendorf High School, Osage High School, Vinton/Shellsburg High School, New London High School, Van Buren County Community School District, West Delaware High School, Lake Mills High School, and Greene County High School.

Going into the state tournament, Lone Tree was undefeated and seeded first in their side of the bracket. They defeated Greene County in their first-round matchup, which advanced the Lions to the second round of the tournament where they would face Belmond-Klemme and lose.

The Lions then had the opportunity to secure third place in the tournament when they faced off against Osage in a consolation match, but ultimately fell short.

Coach Jessica Howard looks forward to next season after a very impressive first season for the Lion E-Sports team.