We went to the tournament with the mentality to "get it back" from Thailand where we were really unfocused and performed badly.
Our first match was against team Ku from Japan. Before the game, I felt the familiar sickness in my stomach that I get when playing for STK... I feel the pressure to perform because it's a name and something that we made ourselves. We were able to aggressively get down the field and win the match 3-1.
Our second match was against Datis from Iran. The points were close, but they rolled over us beating us down 3-0. It didn't really get us down though and I think losing gave us a better insight into how to play the field.
Despite the positive outlook, we started our next match against Epic quite badly, quickly going to 2-0, with Epic requiring only 1 more point to win the match. We all grit our teeth and got ready to sweat, and came back to win 4 points in a row -- 4 because I hung one point with a hit on my hopper lol oops.
The comeback gave us a confidence boost and I felt at this point we had found a groove.
Sunday we played team USA. We were able to beat them. And then we had our final prelim game against Xtioneers, who hadn't lost any matches so far. We were able to beat them 3-0.
We entered the semifinals in third place which left us facing Xtioneers again. They had rallied from the previous game and put up a real fight. We both sat at 2-2, but we were able to tip it over the edge and win the final point, putting us into the running for first and second.
Man, I freakin tasted victory in the finals. My heart was going 10 million miles an hour, I was certain we had it. It was 2-1 with 1 minute left of game time. All we had to do was last out that minute and we would have first place. It was Griffin left in the snake and me left in the dorito corner. They had all the spots on the field but it didn't matter because where we were crossed up they couldn't really pull anything to dig us out with the remaining time. I shot my last balls in a gun battle then knelt down picked up two paintballs from the ground. It was unbeknown to me that picking paint up in Millennium rules gets you eliminated. A ref was standing right next to me. I pleaded with him unsuccessfully and then left the field at a snails pace to try ANYTHING to burn down those remaining seconds, but it wasn't enough and Team USA bunkered Griff and sprinted to the buzzer, sending us into overtime as the score was locked at 2-2. I was crushed, but ready to basically sweat blood to win the overtime point. We just about took the overtime point to time. They gradually whittled us down and first place just slipped away.
The Philippines is definitely a developing country, but we all had a really great time there. The people are friendly and there's plenty of stuff to do. The players party was pretty cool, Zooey and I were judges on the Miss Philippines panel. We made a bunch of new friends and then all went to Fields Av to party it up.
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