Esports to represent Team USA at world championship in Turkey | Northwood University

Northwood Esports this weekend won the 2023 Red Bull Collegiate Valorant National Championship in Chicago, Illinois.

“Now we get a chance to defend our world championship,” stated Coach Cody Elsen, director of Northwood Esports.

Northwood will compete for the global title in Istanbul, Turkey on Nov. 19-24. Northwood’s Valorant team consists of Ali Salahedin, Asbury Park, New Jersey; Benjamin Park, Bloomfield Hills; Michael S. Herrera, Wylie, Texas; Logan Coffey, Taylor Mill, Kentucky; Braden Dippel, Alton, Illinois; and Jeffrey Tomaszek, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

“When we played our first semi-professional event as a collegiate team in August, I knew that we had something special this year — we were able to hang with tier 2 semi-pro teams! It was indicative that we were going to dominate the college championships,” stated Jacob Jacob, assistant director of Northwood Esports and lead Valorant coach. “Overall, the team played well and stuck to our game plan — the players should be proud about how they represented Northwood University.”

Northwood Valorant defeated over 50 of the best collegiate teams last year to win the 2022 Red Bull Campus Clutch World Final in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Esports is an umbrella for numerous competitive games, similar to a university’s athletics department is an umbrella for numerous traditional competitive sports. So Valorant is to an esports program what baseball is to a university’s traditional athletics program.

For more information about Northwood Esports, visit