KCP Chronicles: Quiktrip Pioneers Place Top 11 At RLCS World Championship

KCP Chronicles: QuickTrip Pioneers Place Top 12 at RLCS World Championship

Written by Trey Donovan

The RLCS World Championship headed down to Dickies Arena once again as the best Rocket League players in the world compete for a ring from September 10 through September 15. The QuikTrip Pioneers came in as the second-seeded OCE team behind PWR and looked to do something the OCE region hadn’t seen in half a decade, get top eight.

The Pioneers tournament started against Gentlemates Alpine in their first Swiss Round matchup. In game one, Gentlemates Itachi started the scoring with under a minute played. It would be all the Gentlemates would need as they took game one 1-0. Game two would start very similarly as Itachi would score once again with under a minute played. The Pioneers would answer back quickly as Amphis would tie the game up. In this game and the first two Swiss round matchups for the Pioneers small mistakes plagued them.

 Itachi would continue scoring off of a bad first touch from Fiberr and a heads-up play from Itachi. Game two would go to Gentlemates with Itachi getting a hat trick. Game three would have a slightly slower start, but Seikoo would score off of what seemed to be a miscommunication from the Pioneers. That would lead to a Gentlemates sweep of the Pioneers with another Swiss round matchup the next day.

Looking to clean up their play the Pioneers would face off against Team Secret. Game one would see the Pioneers get to a quick start scoring with Fiberr scoring the first goal in 25 seconds. The match would go back and forth for a little bit before Team Secret’s KV1 tied it up. After some more battling for control, Amphis would play the ball into a corner and got a 50/50 attempt to go his way as the ball went to Superlachie for a tap-in. However, on the ensuing kickoff, Motta would be gifted an opportunity and didn’t waste it.

With the game tied, the Pioneers answered quickly with some more key plays in one of Team Secret's corners. Amphis played gritty and set up another Superlachie goal, but once again Team Secret answered quickly. KV1 would score due to Amphis getting bumped off his line in the net. Game one would go into overtime and after four minutes Fiberr would score the game sealer. After that long match, game two would start quickly for Team Secret as KV1 scored to go up 1-0. Game two would not be the best one for the Pioneers as they would fall 2-0 leading to a series tie.

Game three would see the defenses take over as the first goal wouldn’t be scored until the three-minute mark by Amphis. A minute later Fiberr would give the Pioneers a much-needed cushion. Team Secret had different plans, however, as Brad would score instantly to make it 2-1. With zero seconds on the clock and the ball in the air, Team Secret would score to send game three to OT. Fiberr wouldn’t be too happy about that as he ended game three in six seconds.

Game four would start quickly as Superlachie would get a goal off a sweet pass from Amphis. Too bad KV1 would snap back and score a goal to tie the game. Shortly after that goal, Brad would add another goal for Team Secret off a great play. Once again, off a nice pass from Amphis, Superlachie scored to tie the game. Again, the game would be sent to OT, and Team Secret would edge it out with a goal from Motta. With the threat of going down 0-2 in the Swiss round, both teams had a lot of pressure heading into game 5.

Game five would start slowly as both teams didn’t want to start on the back foot. After a minute of both teams fighting for the right rotations, Team Secret would cut first with a nifty pass from Brad to KV1. This series keeps taking twists and turns as Superlachie scores off a good center from Fiberr.  The second cut from Team Secret would come from Motta as Superlachie had no boost to defend the shot. That goal would be the dagger and Team Secret would add two more to win the series.

Going down 0-2 in the Swiss stage is never good, but there was a solid chance to fight back for the Pioneers. Their first elimination match would pit them against Limitless. Game one started with Fiberr cleaning up a rebound to score eight seconds into the game. Limitless’s Snowwy answered back quickly 20 seconds later to tie the game. This is when Fiberr started to take over as he hit another highlight-reel shot to score, which happened a ton in this tournament. After some back-and-forth action and some quality scoring chances for the Pioneers, Amphis made yet another key play in an opponent's corner to set up Superlachie for a goal and the win.

Game two started with a lot of offensive pressure from the Pioneers leading to a Superlachie goal set up by a 50/50 win from Amphis. With a 1-0 lead, Limitless would get on the board off a great pass from the corner from Snowwy to 2Die4. The middle part of this game would go back and forth on scoring opportunities, but neither team could get one through. That is until the 3:25 mark in the game where Superlachie scored a crazy goal after Limitless bumped him into the ball. Snowwy would answer back as Limitless pressured Pioneers heavily. Then to seal game two, 2Die4 would score a buzzer-beater to make it 3-2.

Game three would see a trend for the Pioneers come up. They would get a plethora of scoring chances but just miss or hit the post as in the first minute three shots did just that. That trend didn’t hurt them here though as at the 2:20 mark Amphis would slam one into the goal over the Limitless defense. That would be the only goal needed to take game three putting the Pioneers on match point.

Game four would play out very similarly to game three as the offenses couldn’t get a goal until the 1:30 mark when Snowwy put on a one-man show to give Limitless the lead. With more defense being played, the Pioneers would answer back about two minutes later as Fiberr scored. Shortly after that goal, Superlachie put up a highlight-reel goal to put a ton of pressure on Limitless. That pressure made diamonds as Snowwy would score with 11 seconds left to tie the game at two. Then the game went into overtime where Superlachie hit a double touch to end the series.

With a series win under their belt, the road didn’t get easier for the Pioneers as they had to face off against the number two seed North American team GenG. With the Pioneers heavy underdogs game, one started well for them. After giving up an easy goal to Chronic, the Pioneers woke up as Fiberr scored off of a 50/50 ball, then Amphis got gifted a goal after ApparentlyJack misplayed a ball. That first minute saw three goals, and then the defenses settled in until Fiberr hit a nice shot to give the Pioneers a 3-1 lead. Shortly after that, Amphis would score to give them a ton of cushion to win game one.

Game two would see GenG start fast as Chronic and FirstKiller scored nine seconds apart after a minute of play. The Pioneers couldn’t get their feet under them in game two and lost 2-0. After two games where both teams dominated one each, game three meant a lot to both of these teams. That showed as there wasn’t a goal scored until the second half of the game. GenG’s Chronic would score at the 3:12 mark to get the scoring going. ApparentlyJack would get a goal shortly after that to make it 2-0 in the game to give GenG a 2-1 series lead.

With their backs against the wall, the Pioneers needed some momentum in game four. That momentum would come with 1:31 left in the game when Superlachie got a goal off a 50/50 ball to give the Pioneers the lead. ApparentlyJack would answer back, but Superlachie would clean up a Fiberr shot to make it 2-1 with 30 seconds left. That goal would send this series to game five.

In one of the biggest series for the Pioneers, game five didn’t fail to excite many viewers. At the 3:35 mark, Superlachie would open the game with a goal after Amphis set it up. 20 seconds later Amphis would make it 2-0 after a GenG couldn’t get back due to lack of boost. GenG wasn’t one to sit back though as Chronic would get a layup that FirstKiller would steal making it 2-1. Then for the most stressful 1:30 of their careers, Amphis, Fiberr, and Superlachie shut down the GenG offense to beat the number two-seeded North American team. In what is considered the upset of the World Championships, the Pioneers put themselves and Oceania on the map as players in the RLCS.

After one of the biggest wins in Pioneers RL history, they would play SSG to try to avenge the World Championship match from three years ago. In the SSG series, the Pioneers struggled with physicality as Hockser would rack up demolitions left and right leading to a lot of chances. The Pioneers never looked comfortable in the series and would get swept to end their World Championship run at a top-12 placing.

It was a crazy journey for the Pioneers in this RLCS season, from not being able to get over the PWR hump in OCE regionals to Fiberr getting benched in the last tournament before Worlds to now making a name for themselves on the world stage. The World Championship showed what the Pioneers are all about as Amphis was the king of setting up his teammates, Superlachie made explosive plays, and Fiberr inserted himself into the World highlight reel many times. The future is looking bright for the Pioneers Rocket League squad. Congratulations to the squad on their year.