By ISAAC LINFORD
The Progress
The Marauders and Dread Pirates robotics teams at Moapa Valley High School came away conquerors at the Nevada Vex Robotics State Championship on Saturday, March 9.
The two teams won the state championship and took home 4 out of 5 world championship qualifying awards from the tournament. In addition, the Dread Pirates received the Excellence Award while the Marauders were recognized as Robot Skills Champions. These prestigious awards came with a banner.
The last remaining banner award, the Design award, was given to the High Rollers team from Cimmaron Memorial High School.
The MVHS students came into State with 6 tournament wins for the Dread Pirates and 4 for the Marauders, the teams felt they were prepared.
In addition, the two MVHS teams had allianced at their last four events and won each. The plan was to repeat this at the State tournament, as the teams felt it was their best chance at victory.
In the VEX Robotics Competition, qualifier matches are played between 2 versus 2 teams. These sets of 2 teams, or “alliances”, are random for qualifiers and selected for eliminations. A higher qualifier rank gives a team a better chance at choosing their preferred alliance partner.
The Marauders started off strong in 1st place by winning their first match and remained there. They continued to win their remaining 7 qualifier matches. They also ended the tournament ranked 1st in the skills challenge.
The Dread Pirates won 6 out of 8 matches. The first loss was a close 62-72 and the other loss was a disqualification despite technical advantage in points. The Dread Pirates finished 3rd in skills and ranked 6th in qualifiers.
So now it was time for eliminations. This meant the teams had to choose an alliance partner. The Marauders selected the Dread Pirates, and the dynamic duo was reunited. Winning the State Championship would qualify them for the World Championship tournament in Dallas, Texas.
The MVHS teams won each match, up to the final eliminations, which was a best of 3. Their round of 16 was 158-62, quarterfinals 148-95, and semifinals 111-84.
The first finals match (being best of three) was 105-104 pitting the two MVHS teams against team High Rollers from Cimmaron and 74177M from Sloan Canyon.
One match away from final victory, the teams reset their robots and adjusted strategy.
After an intense 2 minutes and 45 seconds before an anxious crowd, the final score was counted and announced as 129-99. The Marauders and the Dread Pirates had won the State Championship.
“Teams and coaches tried everything to stop the Dread Pirates and the Marauders from alliancing but they held onto the number one seed,” said MVHS Robotics coach Bryan Linford. “The final matches were intense and that first final match was beyond words.”
“It has been an absolute honor to work with our teams this year, and I’m so proud of how each player has grown,” Linford added.
Matches from the State Championship were recorded by the team media specialist Jensen Blake and will be uploaded soon on the team’s YouTube channel, https://youtube.com/@piraterobotics?si=w3mpY4CDsy99zPK5.
