Anthony High School leveling up with esports team

ANTHONY, Texas - The Anthony High School Wildcats are ready to take their game to the next level.

The school recently started an esports team, and the program has so far been a big hit among Anthony students.

Esports are competitions involving video games.

The program has only been in existence for a year.

Hiran Espinosa is an English teacher at Anthony High School and is the team's head coach.

A fan of video games himself, it was Espinosa's idea to start an esports program.

He didn't have any trouble finding gamers to fill his team.

"I knew it was something that I wanted in high school, I would have loved that." Espinosa said. "Right off the bat I had a good 20 kids that were interested right from the start."

Anthony ISD is one of only two Borderland school districts to participate in esports, Socorro ISD also has esports teams at its high schools.

Alyssa Salgado is a senior at Anthony High School and a member of the esports team.

Salgado tried other conventional sports, but there was something missing.

"It was exactly what I wanted to do," Salgado said. "They just happened to have the game that I wanted to play, and it kind of pushed me to keep my great grades up. It was better than softball. I think this is one thing that I loved more than softball."

Players can choose from a variety games.

They then compete online against other schools from across the country.

One of the games the team plays is a first person shooter game called Overwatch.

Ghandi Lopez, a recent Anthony graduate, was a member of the team during their first season and now serves as an assistant coach.

"The difference that I see is that we have to communicate and come up with a strategy to win the game," Lopez said.

As Lopez explained, it's not just simply jumping into a game and hoping it all works out.

There's a process, like hours of practice devoted to target shooting and knowing each gamer's strengths and weaknesses.

Members of the team admit their first season was a challenge.

"It wasn't as easy as you would think," Salgado said. "We might not have won as many games as we would like to, but we still worked as a team."

"It was like they (teams they played) knew more, and they were better than us at first," Lopez said.

The team is hoping to level up in year two of the program, and for the Wildcats there is no such thing as "game over."

"I definitely want to build up this program, and hopefully be even bigger than the lab that we're in right now," Espinosa said. "Just have it be something that kids will want to come to our school, if that was a possibility. I do want this to be as big as possible."

The UIL is in the process of getting esports as a sanctioned sport throughout the state.