T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Members of the Marshalltown Community College (MCC) Collegiate Karting League Fall 2025 Division 2 National Championship team in Mario Kart 8 DX — Tess Pacza, Dimitri Petrimeas (on Zoom), Ryne Erickson, Jacob Eirikson, Roby Widner and Pete Perkins — pose for a photo inside the console lounge on Monday afternoon alongside Director of eSports Andrew Goforth, left, and Coach Nate Rodemeyer, right.

The rise of the Marshalltown Community College (MCC) eSports program has been something of an underdog story from the start, but the team has risen to national prominence and won national championships in just over three years of existence. Last weekend marked one of its biggest milestones yet as the Tigers Mario Kart team finished an 11-0 season and won the Fall 2025 8DX Division National Championship.

Director of eSports Andrew Goforth explained that the squad decided to compete in the Collegiate Karting League, which is available to all schools.

“We did that because the team-based format in the NJCAAE (National Junior College Athletics Association Esports) is a Division III only title, and we wanted a team based varsity format. So we went to a league to do that,” he said. “And what was crazy about it was some big hitters play in there, right? We played against the University of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Michigan State. These are FBS (Football Bowl Division) D1 schools that play in this league.”

As Goforth noted, a school like Michigan State has a larger student enrollment than the entire population of Marshalltown.

“They have a lot more resources in terms of personnel and, a lot of times, also financially,” he said.

After an undefeated regular season, the MCC squad, comprised of six members, went into the playoffs over the last two weeks and subsequently defeated Morgan State in the first round and Michigan State in the finals.

One of the team members, Tess Pacza, said they scouted MSU and came into the match highly prepared, as did teammate Dmitri Petrimeas, who spoke to the T-R remotely from Fairfield.

“I would constantly set up scrimmages for us to play to get practice in against other teams, so basically we would go without, like, that practice, and we were able to stay warm and keep improving that team chemistry and incorporate new tracks into our rotation and new strategies,” Petrimeas said. “So by the time matches came around, we were ready and we were prepared for anything the other team had to throw at us.”

Ryne Erickson, who hails from nearby Nevada, added that it was humbling to see the MCC teams compete with the “big dogs” and show that they can not only compete with them but beat them, and Pete Perkins noted that despite the pressure of facing those marquee institutions, they knew they had what it takes.

“There’s no doubt in our minds that there’s no one else in that league that was working harder than we were,” he said. “We were as prepared as we possibly could be, and I think there’s nothing too difficult for us if we put our minds to it. And we put our minds to it.”

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.