The Shock Prove Greater Than Spark In OWL Stage 2 Semifinals
By Wyatt Fossett ·
The first-year Spark took to the stage against the nearly undefeatable Shock in the first of two Saturday matchups in the OWL Stage 2 Semifinals.
For a brief moment in Map 1, San Francisco Shock fans from all over the globe held their breath. “All streaks come to an end” said SF Shock’s main-tank Super after the Shock dropped their first map of the stage in their first round match. The way things kicked-off against the Hangzhou Spark, it could have been the Shocks time to lose.
Luckily, the fiery young squad from the Bay Area woke up real early on Busan, and begun their dynamic and aggressive sweep of the series.
The Semifinals round in the Overwatch League playoffs change things to a first-to-four matchup, and that’s just as many maps as it took for the Shock to punch their ticket to the Stage 2 Grand Finals.
It’s been a trip for the Hangzhou Spark in this playoff tournament so far. Their first round victory over the seemingly returned-to-form London Spitfire broke a whole pile of mock brackets. The Spark played admirably in their first appearance in an Overwatch League postseason competition, in their inaugural year no less.
Unfortunately, their second round opponent was the San Francisco Shock, who have just been on a nightmare-inducing tear of the league since losing the Stage 1 Finals to the Titans.
The rest of the Semifinals head-to-head was completely one-sided, and there’s really no blaming the Hangzhou Spark. In fact, fans of the bubble-gum pink finger guns should be very excited about the future of the franchise as we move into Stage 3.
On the San Francisco Shock side, it’s very hard to picture a scenario where anyone is able to beat them. Should they be afforded the opportunity to face off against those Vancouver Titans that took Stage 1 from them, they won’t be entering that battle as the underdogs. Though, it’s hard to say they would be the clear favorites either.
The promotion of the Shock to the Stage 2 Finals means that no matter who they face, the Sunday matchup for the championship will be electric, because those orange and grey lads from San Francisco don’t do anything in boring fashion.
You can catch the Overwatch League Stage 2 Grand Finals Sunday, May 12th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.