Since the first of December, a group of 10 Flandreau High School students have been competing weekly in various esport games hosted by Fenworks, a North Dakota esports organization company and the South Dakota High School Activities Association.
Fenworks also runs the Minnesota, North Dakota and Wyoming esports scenes at the high school level.
This weekend, seven Flandreau students will head to Aberdeen Central High School for the State competition and will play computer games with other qualifiers from across the state.
Competition is held February 14 and 15.
“Our students competed with other high school students from all across the state in games they chose to play in a week-to-week Swiss tournament,” says Advisor Thomas Hill.
“In these tournaments, each round you played someone with similar or the same standings from prior weeks, meaning if you had 4 wins and 1 loss, then you played someone else 4 -1 for that week’s competition,” he noted.

“The better you did, then you played others who were also doing that well, making it harder and harder each week.”
Competitions were held on set days of the week. Hill said for example, Super Smash Bros Ultimate matches were on Tuesdays.
Other games that the students competed in were Minecraft Bed Wars, Mario Kart 8, Chess and Rocket League. There was also a match for League of Legends, but the FHS students did not compete in those.
Two Flandreau individuals will compete at the state competition in the same division of Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Ben Kulm and Justin Haugen. (There are two divisions of SSBU, but the Flandreau students are in the same one.)
“Ben finished the regular season matches undefeated at 8-0,” said Hill noting there were two divisions during the regular season.
“He was the only student in the state to go undefeated in his division.” Kulm defeated last year’s state champion (Ryan Schutte of Dakota Valley) during the regular season.
In the other division, Nathan Rathgeber, also from Dakota Valley, was also undefeated. At state, the top 32 players will all be in one division meaning the two could meet up this weekend.
“Justin finished the regular season 6-2,” said Hill noting that Haugen had an impressive slash line with his only losses coming to Kulm and a student from Aberdeen.
Also attending state in Chess will be Sam Schmidt, Owen Kelm and Kulm and the state qualifying Rocket League team, consisting of Kye Grow, Hovakah Bosin and Franklin Donis Castillo, will also be in the state competition.
“Rocket League plays similarly to soccer, but you use cars with booster rockets attached to them instead of players,” said Hill.
Criteria to attend the State Competition is either the top eight schools for Minecraft Bed Wars and League of Legends, the top 16 teams for Rocket League and Mario Kart, or the top 32 individual students for Chess and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Others on the Flandreau team during the year were Logan Arnold, Isabel Kulm and Maurico Pacheco.