Columbia, MD - A dominating team effort by the Howard Community College League of Legends Maroon Team led the Dragons past Upper Iowa University 2-0. The Dragons will advance to the NECC Challengers Division championship match on Saturday, November 21 at 8 PM against undefeated #1 seed Newberry College who have not lost a single round the entire season.

Game one in the best of three series saw a huge team battle just seven minutes into the game that the Dragons knocked out four of their five opponents and got out to a huge early lead. Howard pinned the Peacocks into their own zone with complete map control which led to one final battle that the Dragons wiped out Upper Iowa and finished the 21 minute game. Abiola Monk (Ellicott City, MD/Wilde Lake) played a flawless Orianna game with a 7/0/7 K/D/A with Minh Dang (Laurel, MD/Laurel) adding six knockouts playing as Samira.

In the second game, the Peacocks came out with a fantastic start getting the first three knockouts. Duy Phuong Nguyen (Kurland, Norway/Mailand videregående Skole) began to pull the Dragons back as the Kha'Zix jungler as he roamed the map rampaging through the opponents to get Howard ahead. Alex Petrusan (Ellicott City, MD/Centennial) dominated his top lane as Ryze as he accrued 10 knockouts with Dang leading the team again with 14. But it was the support play of Daniel Finke (Laurel, MD/DeMatha) with 33 assists that helped the Dragons come out on top of every team battle in the late game as the Dragons closed out the game and the match to book their way into the championship match.

In the first semifinal of the day, Newberry College was able to defeat the Howard CC Gold Team in a match that could have swung either way in both of the games, but the Wolves won just enough team fights to take the match. The Gold Team, who lost four matches in a row early in the season, did a phenomenal job to turn things around as they went on to win five of their next six matches to get all the way to the conference semifinals led by team captain Andrew Wells (Ellicott City, MD/Marriotts Ridge).