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Entertainment

By Madison Rice

On Saturday, Oct. 22, a Call of Duty: Black Ops tournament was held in Lindsay, CA.

The tournament took place at the Mcdermont field house and consisted of 21 teams from all over the central valley. It was a gruesome battle between the ages, ranging from adults to the young adults.

The objective of Black Ops (in some game modes) is to execute the opposing player(s).

Throughout the competition, 21 teams played against each other in three games and three different game modes. Whoever won two out of those three games was announced the victor, and was able to move on to play against their next team. The three game modes they used in the tournament were Domination, Search and Destroy, and Capture the flag.

Marcelo Alves and Derik Milanesio worked with each other to construct the Mcdermont Field House Black Ops tournament.

Alves and Milanesio created the CVG (Central Valley Gamers) website and Facebook page originally for gamers all around the central valley. The site lets the gamers know when and where a tournament will take place.

Alves and Milanesio keep in mind that not all kids can afford to go to the big competitions outside of the central valley. This way, they include the central valley gamers that simply love gaming by keeping the tournaments exclusively in the central valley.

“I think they are geniuses; I wouldn’t be able to make the trip to Sacramento or New York just for a game tournament even if I wanted to,” said sophomore Anthony Gutierrez. “They make it simpler for everyone to join in on the fun, with even a chance at winning a prize.”

Milanesio, one of the creators of the Black Ops tournament replied, “Well it was kind of a combination of us playing video games one night and realizing we only play with 5 local people. We knew there were a lot of gamers around here in the valley, but just never came across any of them. So we wanted to create a gamer community for all the gamers in the central valley to come together and share their joy of video games.”

Each team had four players, and was allowed to pick their team name. One team from Porterville, CA , the Flaming Penguins placed second. They were an all sophomore team and were excited and for what Alves and Milanesio have planned for them in the future.

“We figured one of the best ways of doing this was to hold tournaments,” said Milanesio. “Since big gaming tournament companies like MLG (Major League Gaming) doesn't come to the valley and a lot of kids can't afford to travel all the way to their tournaments, we would provide the tournaments for them.”

The Flaming Penguins grouped together and entered the tournament for fun. Two of Granite’s own students, Anthony Gutierrez and Beto Contreras, were part of the Flaming Penguins squad. The other two teammates, Gunner Seher and Hunter Seher, are brothers who attend Monache High School.

“Our overall performance as a team was really good; we went into the tournament thinking that we would do decent, but we ended up making it to semi-finals, then in finals we took second place,” said Flaming Penguins member Gunner Seher

The cost to participate in the tournament was $25 per team member ($100 per team), making an overall all amount of $2100 for the hosts.

“All of the money collected was handled by Mcdermont and went towards purchasing the grand prize and costs of running the tournament on their end,” said co-creator Alves.

The winners of the tournament, God’s Chosen Soldiers, were a semi-pro team who compete at county and state level. Their prize was four MW3 Hardened Edition Xbox's and Xbox games, four MW3 Limited Edition Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers, and a free entree into their next tournament.

“We had 21 teams participate; we were hoping for more but 21 teams was a good learning curve for us,” said Milanesio. “A majority of the teams were amateurs and for many it was their first competitive tournament. There were a couple of teams, especially the winners that were experienced competitive players though.”

As for Alves and Milanesio, they hope to see a much bigger turn out at their next tournament on Monday, Nov. 7 at the Modern Warfare 3 release. They will be teaming up with the Gamestop in Tulare to put on the tournament for the central valley gamers, for more information on the next tournament visit their website below.

To Learn More about Black Ops:

To Learn More about CVG: