Having made their first LAN final at the
Esports World Cup,
Spacestation Gaming came into the
Rocket League 2026 World Championship full of confidence. A tough group stage featuring narrow losses to both
Karmine Corp and
Team Falcons have tempered that confidence, but they remain one of the tournament’s big threats. The North American youngsters overcame an experienced
Twisted Minds in their opening game of the Playoffs, setting up a challenging match versus
Gentle Mates.
Zachary "zach" Stone sat down with Sheep Esports to reflect on the exciting match against Twisted Minds, how the EWC grand final prepared them for this event and what’s going right for North America.
How do you react when you see a team falling apart like that in that first game?
Zachary "zach" Stone: “We kept saying keep going, keep going. We didn’t want to give them any chance to get back into it. We just wanted to keep piling on while they were down.
Did losing the EWC grand final really help you guys understand where you sit as a team? How did that LAN get you ready for the World Championship?
zach: It definitely helped out mentally. We know that each series we need to go in with a new mindset, we can’t be too focused on a previous series. It's one series at a time, which is what we really lacked at EWC. Getting second confirmed what we were doing was working and we need to keep doing it.
You are currently the youngest player still competing in the LAN. Do you still feel pressure, or have you slowly but surely begun to get into flow state at these events?
zach: Yeah, this is my second Worlds so I feel pretty comfortable and confident.
North America has been doing really well. It's one of the best World Championships North America has ever had so far. Why do you think that is?
zach: I think the groups worked out well for the North American teams, besides us. I think the Play-In teams came in with a lot of confidence especially and just rode that wave. They’ve all been playing really good.
Going into the next series, how confident are you guys against Gentle Mates?
zach: We go into every series confident.
Who do you think is the most dangerous team still left in this tournament?
zach: Either Karmine Corp or Team Falcons.
You took them both to wire in the group stage. Do you think anything needs to change to finish out those series?
zach: I think we figured it out between MIBR and Twisted Minds. We just needed to calm down in those situations, make sure we play the same and don’t turtle up or anything.”
