WCA 2010

Got back from World Cup Asia in KL this morning. We came 3rd. I'm pretty happy with it. We fought our way through a difficult pool winning against Datis, SWAT, Demonz Red, Boonie Dogs and drawing to French team Bad Element and German team Dirty Annihilation. All of the games were extremely difficult and it really seemed like any of the teams from our pool could have gone on to win the tournament. There were plenty of moments where we were on the knife edge of losing games but thankfully instead of cracking we were able to use it to pull together and bring it back. We finished the prelims in 2nd seed to SWAT.

This left us to play Xtioneer/Xfox in the quarterfinals (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjil0Fj9zlI). We won this which left us to face Datis in the semi-finals. It was a difficult game. I think we made a bit of a mistake not conceding a 2v1 point when we should have, which left us grappling for time to make up points. The game finished at time in Datis favour sending them on to play the championship game, which they won. Datis are nice guys and I'm happy for them to have won the tournament!

This left us to play for 3rd and 4th. I felt like we were playing good enough to win the event, and I think we came up against a semi-deflated Ronin team, so we were able to beat them 4-0 and take 3rd. We finished the PALS series in 2nd place.

 

TK Round 5 2010

Today was the final round of the TK series. We had all 8 of our roster playing... it was a little bit tricky to work through rotating at just a local 5 man... but it worked out ok as we won, giving us a clean sweep of the TK series this year and the series title again.

TK Round 4 2010

Yesterday was the fourth round of the TK. We came first in the finals against Perth City Trauma.

The Philippines

Just got back from The Philippines where we competed in the second leg of the PALS. The event was really great, an extremely high quality tournament -- I thought everything ran really smoothly.

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.

Super 5's Round 2 and TK Round 3

Late updating this because I went to Japan for a holiday!

Couple of weeks ago we played our first round of Super 5's for the year, given we missed the first one because we were in Thailand. Our roster was Timmy C, Stiffla, Rambo, Zooey and myself. The field was OK, the snake had a big bunker in the center of it which made it pretty comfortable to play. With the day based on points and no finals, a few screw ups and losing the Killswitch game left us in 2nd place.

The week after was TK round 3. Finally got to play a local tourney with the boys after being in Sydney for the first round and Adelaide for the second. This was the first tourney with everyone present on the new roster. Rotating with so many guys is still something that's going to take a bit of work to figure out, but the day went pretty smooth overall. Personally I had a sweet day, I loved the field, and it was great to have Griff back after his thumb injury. The Dash Bratts have come so far since when I remember first playing them. They were sitting ahead of us in points going into the finals. First game of the finals against them, we destroyed them in less than a minute -- their right side just disappeared and I was able to get to their side of the field pretty quickly down the snake. Credit to them, they came back the second game and beat us; I wish I could commentate on what happened but I'm not entirely sure! The third game we slowed it down a bit, and I felt the game was fairly even for a while. Having Griff in the snake made a huge difference, and Rambo and I were able to fill out to effective spots as the game whittled down. We won the game giving us 1st place.

In other news, Mason ended up returning to the team once he cleaned all the sand from his vagina. He's one of us, it would have just sucked to have lost him so we're all really pleased he's back.

Now we have to get it back in the Philippines, we have something to prove after our terrible performance in Thailand. We are definitely going to be more prepared this time.

Thailand and other updates...

Finally going to update this...

Since the 3man the team has had a couple of changes. First, Diesel retired from competitive paintball (for now) so we've picked up Luke Martin. I really loved playing with Diesel, he was a perfect fit for our team and a great guy. He was always alive when it counted, and I always felt like he was putting in 100% to the team and he really believed in STK. Come back soon you scraggly manky creature. Luke (Zooey) has already settled in well with us. He's a strong pickup, he used to thrash us around a bit when he played for Menace Kids.

Next, the boys won the first round of the TK while I was away. The finals came down to a 1vs1 which Rambo won! Apparently Rambo was king of the tournament and was shooting 3+ people a game... and I believe it because Rambo is awesome!

After the TK, we all went to Pattaya in Thailand for a tournament. We didn't play paintball so good over there. We seemed to be doing OK, like we'd win the first 2 points outright, and then let the other team come back with 3 unanswered points. We did that EVERY game. It was incredibly frustrating. I think there were a couple of reasons for it. Firstly, we were definitely understaffed. We only had Brad in the pitts, but he was trying to coach as well. So we'd play the first two points, then be out of pods, so we'd frantically try to fill pods, air up, change the game plan all why dying in the billion degree heat. It was just too much and we threw so many games away. We did as well as we could given all of this, with Zooey power-chucking and Rambo looking like a giant red beetroot. Despite a disappointing performance, we still enjoyed the event! And we loved Thailand too... crazy place.

Following Thailand, Mason left the team. It's a huge loss, he was a great player. He could have left on good terms by just telling us he's out of money, or out of passion, or whatever, but instead he has just ignored all 400 of our calls to him? And we've found out through other people he's quit. It's a little bit hurtful how he has gone about it but we wish him the best...

In light of this, we've picked up Timmy Colgan and Travis Strurcke. They both played really well at WCA last year for Menace Kids, and we're already friends with them so it should be a good fit.

We're going to prepare for playing the Philippines event now.

Dash 3man Round 1 2010

Yesterday was the first round of Dash's 3man at Langley park. Dash had a really cool setup going on, and it was good for paintball to be in such a visible place.

It was a fun day, but the field was extremely challenging... it could definitely have used a few more playable bunkers -- I think it that would have made it more exciting for spectators too. Still enjoyed it though. Our 3man team consisted of me, Rambo and Stiffla.


We ended up finishing second.