T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY NJCAAE Division II eSports national champions Ryan Goulding (Overwatch 2 team) and Ryne Erickson (individual Mario Kart) of Marshalltown Community College play some Smash for fun inside the laboratory on Friday afternoon. Goulding is an East Marshall alum, while Erickson hails from Nevada.

Marshalltown Community College (MCC) eSports coaches Nate Rodemeyer and Andrew Goforth have always intended to build a program with a reputation for sustained excellence, and judging by the results of the fall season that came to a close over the weekend, they continue to achieve that goal.

“We played 12 different game titles. We had 65 different students compete. We had every single team down to the person qualify for playoffs. We’re currently sitting at two national championships, six runner-ups and we compete for another one tonight,” Rodemeyer said on Friday. “It’s been a pretty successful season.”

Those three champions are Ryne Erickson in Mario Kart and the Overwatch 2 team in the National Junior College Athletics Association Esports (NJCAAE) Division II and the Rainbow Six Siege team in Division III. Rodemeyer noted that out of the 16 finalists in Mario Kart, seven of them came from MCC, and the school took first, second, third and fourth place overall. Previously, MCC alum Amber Lawthers, who is now competing at Buena Vista University, won the school’s first national title in Mario Kart and helped put the program on the map. The MCC Mario Kart team also finished as the national runner-up.

Ryan Goulding, a Le Grand native and Class of 2023 East Marshall alum who is a member of the champion Overwatch 2 team, found out about the opportunity to compete in eSports through older friends who joined the team and said it inspired him to get involved. Erickson grew up just down Highway 30 in the other direction in Nevada and recalled the MCC coaches visiting his high school when he was a sophomore.

“Basically immediately after that, they were just kind of on my radar the whole time, like ‘Hey, this is a pretty local community college to go to, and it has a thriving eSports team that has had some huge success, especially by the time I was able to join the program,” he said.

And while the competitive accolades are great to earn, Goforth was also sure to note the academic performance of the MCC team.

“Our recruitment numbers are consistently going up, and the quality of people that we’re bringing in is consistently going up, not just competitively but academically,” he said. “The NJCAAE did a study, and we are the highest performing academic institution in our league.”

He also highlighted the differences between his teams: the Mario Kart group was “dominant” throughout the year, but the Overwatch squad went 5-2 and had to defeat two teams they had previously lost handily to in the regular season in order to win the national championship.

“That felt really good,” Goforth said.

And as the success of the program continues, recruiting becomes easier with word spreading both near and far across the state. Goforth felt that the high school eSports championship being hosted in Marshalltown at the MCSD Orpheum Welcome Center is also a huge benefit to MCC.

For now, members of the team are excited to take a well-earned break and recharge their batteries as they prepare for the spring season after winter break.

“These guys all have this kind of passion and fire underneath them, and I know they’ll come back in January ready to defend titles, get even better placements than they did before (and) things like that,” Rodemeyer said. “We’re gonna keep going strong with the game titles that we offered this fall. We might even have a few new teams pop up in the spring depending on interest from our students… I think we’re just ready to go out there and do it again. You know, we consistently have these strong performances and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon with the dedication these guys put in.”

Goulding said he would encourage anyone to inquire about the program and keep their competitive spirit alive at the collegiate level even if they aren’t likely to otherwise make an athletic team, and Erickson, who graduated from Nevada High School in 2024, speaks highly of MCC among friends from his hometown and hopes they will consider competing here. Erickson is studying broadcasting and digital media at MCC, while Goulding is enrolled in the secondary education coursework.