The Undead Dukes, the Gloucester High School Esports team, won the spring state championship in Mario Kart following this past weekend’s in-person championship event at Old Dominion University.

Lauren Schoenthal coaches Gloucester’s ESports teams which have a fall and spring season that is coordinated by PlayVS and VHSL. The group runs several different teams for different games including Overwatch, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. For the spring season, the Mario Kart team advanced to playoffs after a successful regular season.

Playoffs consist of the top 32 teams in the state in a seeded bracket. Teams that make it to the top eight (quarterfinals) are invited to participate at an in-person championship event at ODU. Gloucester won the first round of playoffs against Bassett High School and the second round against John Champe H.S. These wins allowed Gloucester to proceed to Saturday’s championship event which was livestreamed the through ODU ESports twitch channel.

GHS won its quarterfinal match against C.D. Hylton and then won its semifinal match against Landstown allowing GHS to compete in the finals against the undefeated team from Heritage High School (Lynchburg).

Gloucester had a flawless 2-0 victory landing the Undead Dukes the title of VHSL ESports Mario Kart State Champions.

This is the first year VHSL ESports is considered a sanctioned activity, so Gloucester is the first team in Virginia to officially receive the State Champion title for Mario Kart ESports.

Just like all other VHSL sports, the team received a state champion trophy (currently in the main office) and a team set of gold state champion medals. The team will be advancing to nationals through PlayVS.