Over week 2, it became clear in the western conference that the skill gap between the many different teams is smaller than expected. In an interesting turn of events, no team that has played matches both weeks is without at least one game win. In a similar vein, the only team with two match wins to get there without a game loss is perennial powerhouse USC, sporting a 6:0 game record over UC Davis and Augustana College. Another newsmaker this week was Rice University, coming off a 2:3 loss and stopping University of North Texas's attempt at a 2-0 match streak. The match went to ace, and the Protoss mirror was played by Jun Song from North Texas and Dennis Qian from Rice. The players opened up with standard one-gate builds, first diverging when Qian opted for zealot before core, and Song chose to get the faster tech. Qian laid the pressure on, building a second zealot as the first moved toward Song's base. As Song warped in a robotics facility, Qian stopped his mining with a manner pylon and the two zealots were en route to Song's base as Qian warped in a dragoon. The first zealot had moderate success, killing a few probes, while the second turned back to deal with Song's scout. Both sides then took their natural expansions, building dragoon armies while jockeying for map position with observer/goon balls. Destination's three bridges prevented any quick army moves across the map, but Qian eventually managed to lure Song's army out of position and destroy the natural nexus before his army was forced back, effectively ending the game.

Meanwhile, UCSD struggled to a win over UC Berkeley in another ace match, with David “Jaeyun” Kim defeating Roy Hoi Song Jung aka Zeko- in a ZvP on Destination. Jung's 1-base Protoss build was defeated by a series of lurker contains that made Jung unable to mount any significant opposition to Kim's mass expansions, despite early DT pressure. When Kim's attack on 8 o'clock gave him at 6-to-3 base advantage, Jung conceded the game. With UCSD improving to 2-0, it joined the club of USC, Caltech, Texas A&M, Northwestern, University of Michigan, and Purdue with the same record. Also undefeated are University of Tennessee, Ohio State University, University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, Harvey Mudd, and UC Irvine. UC Riverside, is also 1-0, with its other win over Arizona State no longer counting after ASU dropped from the league. Riverside will make this match up with one against Augustana to be played at a later date.

The upcoming “matches to watch” are no doubt headlined by UCSD vs Caltech, the only battle of 2-0 teams occurring next week. UC Riverside, with their 3:0 win over Arizona State being taken away when ASU left the league, has a tough 2 games “on the road” coming up, battling Canadian schools University of British Columbia and University of Victoria in the next two weeks. Another match shaping up to be a good one will be Oregon State against Rice. Rice, coming off a hard-fought win to improve to an even record, will be up against Oregon State, a team fielding the minimum four players to compete, also with a 1-1 record. Western Conference Division 1 is looking to heat up this week, with Northwestern, University of Michigan, and Purdue all trying to stay perfect through three weeks. With six more weeks in the season, however, it's truly anybody's game.