eUnited Counter Strike Draws Even In Lonestar State

By: Zachary Lange

In their opening day at DreamHack Open Austin, eUnited Counter Strike were able to go 1-1 in match count to secure a win-and-in playoffs matchup on Saturday at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

This event marks the first domestic major event for the squad with a prize pool of $100,000. 

Against Fragsters, the No. 25 ranked team in CS:GO according to HLTV, eUnited secured both pistol rounds en route to a 16-9 victory. Michael "dapr” Gulino led the team with 24 kills, with Will “dazzLe” Loafman right behind him with 23 kills.

This is the first time that the teams have met in competitive play.

However, lengthy technical delays, including a pause of nearly 2 hours against European team Heroic, would ultimately lead to a downhill snowball effect with eUnited losing 10-16.

eUnited began the best-of-one matchup against Heroic with an 8-2 lead. But after the freeze in play with the score at 8-5, eUnited failed to maintain the same pace they set hours before.

Still, Kaleb “moose” Jayne remained confident in the team’s hopes moving deeper into the weekend.

“We just got to go play our game,” moose said. “Forget about this, hope this stuff doesn’t happen again, where we lag out, but if we play our own game and get off to a hot start like that again we just have to try our hardest to keep going, keep the pressure up and not let off like we did today.”

Coach Jared “osorandom” Hartman cited the fact that the team kept the opposition off guard with various plays throughout the match. From here, it’s a matter of putting together a full 16 rounds.

“It’s a good result against a top-20 team,” osorandom said. “Obviously, it’s not the result we wanted but it’s still good to pull off a good amount of rounds and still show off a good showing.”

eUnited’s opponent on Saturday will be the winner of Fragsters vs. Luminosity Gaming. With a victory, eUnited would guarantee a top-4 placement.

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