After being handed their 4th 0-2 loss in a row, Bad News Bears becomes the first team to be eliminated from the 14th season of ESL Pro League season 14. Both the teams came into the tie with a record of 0-3, and whoever lost would be eliminated, and today it was BnB. The NA team that has been looking for an organization to support them for all of 2021, had a rough go of things in the first tournament after the player break, as they couldn’t manage a single map win in the competition. Much of this was owed to less practice and scrims against the biggest teams, most of which are based out of Europe. Playing with a stand-in they improved throughout the competition, showing better grit and spirit with each game and will go back to NA with a lot more experience and polished gameplay to boot.
MAP VETO
- Bad News Bears removed Ancient
- Spirit removed Vertigo
- Bad News Bears picked Inferno
- Spirit picked Dust2
- Bad News Bears removed Mirage
- Spirit removed Overpass
- Nuke was left over
MAP 1: Inferno
(Picked by: Bad News Bears, Won by: Team Spirit, Final Score: 16:6)
The first map, the pick of BnB was a tough one, despite them performing better than they did yesterday versus Astralis where they managed just 4 rounds, all on the T side. Starting on the T side again today, they had a difficult start and lost 7 of the first 8 rounds, before they could get anything done. They finished the half with a scoreline of 5:10, which was respectable considering their T-side start. On to the CT side, their woes and lack of practice showed again, as they needed to win the pistol to even have a chance of a comeback, which they couldn’t do. They lost 4 in a row before getting one round, and then losing the two again, courtesy of Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev’sbrillian entry frags. sdy has had a quiet tournament but came out in spades today versus BnB as he posted 22 kills with a rating of 1.68 to end the map 16:6 for the Russians.
MAP 2: Dust2
(Picked by: Team Spirit, Won by: Team Spirit, Final Score: 16:8)
On to the bread and butter of the CIS team, Dust2 was another tough nut to crack for the Americans. The CIS squad had a 75% win rate on the map in the last 3 months and weren’t looking to go down so easily.
They ran riot on the T side, taking a lead of 7-0 before BNB put themselves on the board. But it wasn’t to last as they came back with 4 more rounds on the trot, and the last of the half as well to take a mammoth 12:3 lead on their map pick. Abdul “degster” Gasanov showed just how good he was on an AWP-centric map as he posted 20 kills on the T side alone, leaving very few options for the Americans to try to mount a comeback. BnB did have a respectable T side as they put up 5 rounds on the T side, and 8 in total after being down 14:3. They did avoid getting humiliated and reached a scoreline of 15:8 but it was too tall of an order to complete the comeback as they ended the map 16:8.
AFTERMATH
The Bears are now eliminated as the Bad News continues for them in Europe. They will bow out in the last place and take home $3,000 in prize money. They still have a shot at a win when they play ENCE tomorrow in their last game of EPL, and maybe tomorrow they can finally win a map. Spirit are currently 1-3 in the group, second from last, and still have a very very miniscule chance of qualifying if things go south for Astralis or Vitality and work in their favor eventually.
