First Smash Bros. video game tournament in Freeport

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Founders and volunteers of Mid-Tier Summit Gaming held the first ever youth video game tournament at the Freeport memorial library. Pictured from left to right, Nkosi Archibald, Jacky Dugue, Corey Abrahams, Alexander Holcombe, Joe Marchesse-Schmitt, Timothy Moore and Chris Chin.
Founders and volunteers of Mid-Tier Summit Gaming held the first ever youth video game tournament at the Freeport memorial library. Pictured from left to right, Nkosi Archibald, Jacky Dugue, Corey Abrahams, Alexander Holcombe, Joe Marchesse-Schmitt, Timothy Moore and Chris Chin.
Donovan Berthoud/Herald

The Freeport Memorial Library held a video game tournament on Dec. 15 with support from the Mid-Tier Summit Gaming, a gaming organization creating E-sports and a safe gaming community across Nassau County held the first ever youth video game tournament in the region.

“Seeing all the children and adolescents having fun and building rivalries reminded me of my younger days playing against my friends in our homes,” Alexander Holcombe, Co-CEO of Mid-Tier said. “Honestly, this tournament made me kind of jealous [because when I was that age] we had no Mid-Tier Summit Gaming to come out and battle each other. We had to just travel to a different friend’s house for smaller size matches.”

Designed specifically for competitors in grades fifth through 12, the tournament highlighted the game Super Smash Bros. 4 and streamed it live via Twicth.tv/mtsummit, an online live video game streaming website which connects players from around the globe.

While some kids showed up to just watch the tournament, others came prepared with their own Wii U Gamecube controller adapter or GameCube controller. Throughout the evening gamers battled playing different characters of Smash Bros, a video game series of crossover fighting games that highlights different characters from Nintendo games like Kirby, Diddy Kong and including the Mario Bros. — Mario and Luigi.

In the past couple of months, Mid-Tier has been consistently hosting one event each month with hopes of increasing the number of events at the start of the New Year. Though a bulk of their events are held at the Cradle of Aviation, the organization has also held events at the Baldwin and South Huntington libraries.

According to Holcombe Freeport’s tournament was the first and only teen tournament they’ve held, but there are talks of hosting additional youth tournaments in the future. Until then, Mid-Tier is preparing for their next tournament to be held on Jan. 20 at Cradle of Aviation in Garden City to play Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition and Call of Duty for PS4.