Event Recaps

2023 NXL Mid Atlantic Major recap

zenandtheartofpaintball2 Comments

Damn…

The above statement was going to be the extent of this month’s blog regarding the 2023 NXL’s Mid Atlantic Major. I think it sums it up quite succinctly. But, like my team, I will “endeavor to persevere”. Team Captain Stuart Ridgel came up with this event’s theme. He made an excellent statement earlier in the week. We are “limitless”. The only people putting limits on us are ourselves. It was time for us to step out of our own way and get what was ours. Awe-inspiring and one of 5 million reasons I am blessed to be a part of this team.

We have set rather specific goals for this season, just as we did the last. But we don’t just state the goal and will it into existence. No, when we reach a new plateau, we develop a plan/infrastructure to lead us to the next. We all fill out “audits” after every event and we use these to pave a path forward. No filter, pure honesty, and 100% accountability. Everyone sees what everyone wrote.

We met 2 of our main goals for this event: Beat Houston Heat and make Sunday. But we were very close to a 3rd goal we had set for the season. That goal is a top 4 finish. And had you asked me Sunday morning to bet on us reaching it at this past event, I wouldn’t have just called the bet, I would have raised you.

Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant said, “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

In preparation for Philly, we had the distinct privilege to scrimmage AC Diesel. Mike Hinman is, quite literally, a legend when it comes to coaching. And you instantly see why. He commands the room. There is no “fluff”, it is to the point, efficient, and practical. My guys got to put themselves up against some legends of the game while I got to see the inner workings of a mind. We are all students and in order to be successful, we must watch and listen to learn. Every opportunity we get, we want to learn. So, we watched and listened a lot that weekend. And then applied Bruce Lee’s method: Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

It became obvious to me you had two options on how to approach this layout. Where most matches have what we like to call the “scramble” mid game, with this particular layout, it was almost as if the scramble was taking place off the break.You either had good guns on the break with a pocket to start play off up bodies (risk getting stuck) or you took real estate fast to create pressure early (risk getting whittled). The Canes would learn both. If we could, we would hide our offensive approach until necessary. We would also shift personnel around, as well as add several audibles for the box. This would play out well as we played a total of 34 points this event. We would win 22 of those 34 for a 65% win ratio. An improvement over Sunshine State Major (57%) and Lonestar (56%). Continuous improvement is the goal and I am glad to see the needle moving in the right direction.

*Zen Note – had more than a few conversations at the event about our “style”. Supposedly we have earned a reputation of playing a lock-down style. I’ve never looked at it that way. I’ve always looked at it as, we play the field the way we think it needs to be played. There are several variables that go into that, one of which is almost always dependent on our opponent.

The Canes would head to Philly minus two valuable assets. Jacob Searight, who I felt would have been an absolute monster on this layout, and Justin Bailey who not only has tremendous survivability and excellent communication skills but showed everyone at Lonestar why he wears a Cane jersey.

VS Ironmen

We had scouted the Ironmen the day before at their practice on Thursday. You should always take a team’s practice with a grain of salt. What you will see does not necessarily translate to what you will get once the event begins. But it can be telling. You can extrapolate certain aspects of information from the breakout, the personnel, their positioning, demeanor, and of course, their game play. I got the distinct impression we were watching the Ironmen’s total game. And I would be, for the most part, right. They had solid lanes on the break for the snake, they knew the importance of the snake, but there appeared to be a large chink in the armor. And we would try to exploit it.

Headed into this game, we wanted to go short, have them waste a gun and get ours up. We shoot two. But the Ironmen take the Center Brick and the snake 50 which can make our bunkers feel small. But we had faced this scenario at practice several times so we knew how to address it. The guys maintain composure and shoot the bounce to kill the center. This leaves the Men with only two bodies left, both on the snake side. Mike Brown has steadily been taking ground on the D side looking for the slow squeeze as there is no reason to get in a hurry and run into a gun. But we give them a body in an attempt to challenge that 50 snake wrapping. The Ironmen’s snake player makes a valiant effort to make something happen (something us coaches appreciate) but it doesn’t work out and it doesn’t work out for the last push from the last Ironmen player either. 1-0 Canes

The next point was a cluster and certainly not one you want to witness as a coach. We trade bodies off the break making it a 4 on 4 but the Ironmen would have position with a snake presence. That presence peels off Mike Brown from the dorito corner making it 4 on 3 advantage Men. Aaron Pate makes the right read and re-positions to contest the snake. Those two trade. It is now a 3 on 2 in favor of the Ironmen. But this is a great example of how your opponent’s one mistake can save your rear end. The Men were in dorito 2, inset dorito, and snake side can. The snake side can Ironmen player (Pretty sure it was Keith Devitt) releases to the can near the center brick on the snake side. My guess is he wanted to keep one of my last two guys from spreading snake way. But he plays it so tight that, either he fails at this job, or he thought there was still a Canes player in the snake corner. This allows Drew Bell not only to get out to snake side can, but to shoot him. In order to do it though, Drew exposed himself to the Ironmen’s slow D side push. This leaves Stuart Ridgel in a 2 on 1. Nick Slowiak attempts to spread the field to make Stu fight two fronts. However, Stu had sneakily taken ground to the D side wedge which has a Mac Truck lane snake way, and catches Nick. It’s now a 1 on 1. Last Ironmen player doesn’t know the situation and Stu get’s the drop. 2-0 Canes.

We move back to our base play (this can change the next day dependent on opponent and what we learned first day) and pocket up a bit to get guys in primaries and guns up. And it pays off big. We shoot two and then they get a minor all within about 3-4 seconds of the break. Shane/Nicki/Pax saw enough and quickly concede. 3-0 Canes

Plenty of time on the clock. No need to risk bodies since our base seems to be working. We also know they will try to take ground early snake way and probably position one other asset far dorito. When Keith Devitt lined up in the stack snake side in the one spot, we knew he would try to round snake corner and feed the snake. We audible and put another gun there. We shoot Keith but they take one of ours as well. Interestingly enough they choose to go center brick. Smart read by the two on snake side for the Men as he quickly rounds the snake corner to feed the snake and maintain that pressure. But they give us another body from the D side. This leaves us with 4 and the Men with 3 and we know they have the center brick. With a 3 point lead we don’t have to go anywhere. We are zoned up appropriately and the clock is rolling. We kill the center leaving the two Ironmen in the snake. We had just seen this scenario before in an earlier point so, again, no need to get spectacular. But my guys body language and comms are telling me they still think there is a d side presence. So we are off on the count. Mike Brown gets out of the corner, probably because he knows the snake is hot and doesn’t want to get pinched if there is an unknown D side asset for the Men. Aaron Pate uncharacteristically dies but we start to turn the field shooting the bounce to take the first snake player. Another valiant effort by the last snake player to make something happen but just two many guns. 4-0 Canes.

We test the gun, Nic makes the snake and shoots the Ironmen’s snake player. However, Ironmen use that center brick again and catch Nic’s pack as he gets to 50 snake. At the same time, we lose Mike Brown out of that insert dorito near back center. We press the issue snake side not checking the center off and pay for it. Drew Bell and Stuart Ridgel try to stem the bleeding but the Men finally slow it down, check in, and squeeze the point. Ironmen get on the board. 4-1 Canes

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Back to base with our guns up and sure enough, kill three on the break (we shot one snake way, we shot one in the center, and we shot one dside). The coaching staff for the Men let’s it play out though and I understand the call. Perhaps one of your two remaining guys picks a guy off or the Canes get a penalty… we shoot the last two and the Men concede the point with 4:55 remaining on the clock. 5-1 Canes.

Obviously the Men have to press so we move a chess piece to the first wedge dorito side to slow options down snake way and shoot for any secondary fills. And we position our juice box to maintain honesty D side. Other than that, the song remains the same. We shoot two on the break again, win another gunfight almost immediately after that, followed by another… five on one and the Ironmen concede the point. 6-1 Canes.

At this junction, I would be very happy to get out of the match with a mercy rule win since my initial paint estimate is looking to be perfect (the number of cases I told the pit crew we would need for the match). And we have not had to show much at all before our second match. I figure we go base play, turn two guns in, two guns out, with safety valve and let the men kill themselves. But, the Ironmen had other plans. We get a kill out of the center but we let them take big real estate on the snake as well as the D side. My two center players get stuck and eliminated and well… next thing you know, they put another one up on us. 6-2 Canes.

We were in X-ball now (what’s new, we always end up with at least 1-2 matches at events going into X-ball). I had a strange thought in my head at that moment. I’m always looking for the psychological edge and I remember thinking to myself, what is going on in their pit right now? I know Shane and Pax well as they are two of my first mentors not to mention close friends. I finally met Nicki and spoke to her this event. I enjoyed speaking with her but I didn’t grab much insight. And I figured Slowiak has to be part of the conversation as I had finally had the opportunity to speak to him and see him in his element. He has a big personality and would most certainly give his 2 cents. There I am thinking they were obviously over there discussing what to do down 6-2 with 3:46 left. Would there be concordance? Would their be differing opinions? Would there be doubt? What could I do to ensure we put this one away… I think that is one of the things I love most about my guys during a match. Our efficiency. We don’t have any doubt in our game plan. We make the call and my guys produce the center kill.

But… two of my guys catch mystery balls and the point quickly devolves into a 3 on 3 and then a 3 on 2! My guys are stacked in snake side can and the god bunker with Ironmen who have two in the snake and a D side asset that is quickly taking ground. But the two I have left? Daniel “Clutch” Camp and Aaron “Hold My Beer” Pate. Numbers 2 and 3 on the Canes gun fighting list…

Not that any of that came into play though…

No, instead, an Ironmen player runs to the side of the bunker that Pate is holding a lane for the D side. He and Pate trade but he continues his run to shoot Danimal. Red bird of death flies and the swing point is awarded to us. 7-2 Canes

2:14 on the clock, the score is 7-2. I’m thinking we are getting out of this match with a win so, why show anything else. We have seen great success with our pocket guns on the break. I believe I had said earlier in the match that our base play beat their haymaker 9 out of 10 times. The guys agree and we get ready to go to work. I needlessly point out that if we see opportunities to gain ground and put ourselves into position to get that buzzer… full send. We shoot both their wide players in exchange for one of ours. 4 on 3 advantage to us. But I think it was Hughes who tries to flip the script by coming on our side of the snake. However, we have a call for this scenario as we saw it often in practice. The code is given and we hammer the bounce shot eliminating Mr. Hughes who also draws a minor. We had peeled off another one prior to the flag leaving my guys alone on the field to walk down and seal the deal.

VS Notorious

I will admit that this one had me a little nervous though I would never admit it during the event. We are close with the Notorious program and Ryan Gray has become a good friend. We made a gentleman’s wager on the match and I was broke. I hope this isn’t taken in a derogatory manner by any of the Notorious crew but it felt like a little brother/big brother match up. And that’s how we approached it. We had scouted their match against the MLKings and felt we had a good read. Knowing how each other thinks and plays though can be both advantageous as well as disadvantageous. And that would play out during this match.

First point we decide we want a snake presence early. Notorious goes short but takes the center 50 brick on the break. But he doesn’t seem to know which side he wants to shoot and we make it in. He posts up snake side, perhaps waiting for a secondary. We shoot Archie out of the center on the break (they were going to get his gun up and then send speed demon underneath no doubt) and I believe we get a ball on Ty Batemen in the dorito corner. Notorious’ newest pick up, Harris Husein, quickly back-fills Ty’s old spot. Markie then tries to fill out to snake corner but gets picked up. We had discovered the center earlier and Stu decides to go trade as Nic Ripple, German snake player extraordinaire, closes out the point. This all happened in the span of less than a minute. 1-0 Canes

The rest of the match would not go as smoothly as that first point. Notorious comes out swinging next point sending Archie to the snake and shooting two of us on the break. We catch Arch in the gap but Markie makes a good read and gets into the snake almost immediately. Notorious has body advantage and position now. Markie shoots Stu out of back center leaving us with the snake side can and the dorito corner. Hussien is now in the snake with Markie and that combo crops Drew Bell. Mike Brown learned his lesson from Texas and makes the decision for me by moving forward and attacking. Tied now 1-1.

The next point would prove to be a grinder. We trade two of our bodies for one of theirs giving Notorious a 4 on 3 advantage. The battle for the snake had begun and Nic was in S2 for us and Archie was in S2 for Nototious. But then my guys just start dying out of spots. As a coach, I usually meet my guys at the net as they come off if I see something that was uncharacteristic or I don’t know what happened. This was one of those times. We had spoke about this after the Ironmen match. We have to be tighter and leverage our gun discipline. Pate gets to the snake corner to contain allowing Britt in the dorito wedge to dump paint into the pinball machine that is the snake 50 hoping to catch Archie if he got sloppy. Nic re-positions to 2nd snake mini brick to get his eyes up in front of him. Notorious gets Jared Sherman in there with Archie so they definitely have the advantage. But we even it up when Archie takes the walk. With the 3 on 3 spread, unless someone wins a gun fight, this was going to be a long point and it was. Nic moves again to S1 but I don’t think we knew about the next body in the snake. When Pate joins Nic in the snake, I thought to myself, okay here we go, now we have it. Unfortunately, Britt gets picked up on a bounce shot. Ty starts to figure out he can go and begins taking ground D side. Harris joins Jared in the snake and Ty beats Pate’s cross field gun. THERE WAS A FIRE FIGHT! Nic actually did bounce Ty as he runs in to get the buzzer. Notorious takes the point. 1-2 Notorious.

LVL and Damage finally give us a little time to game plan and we take advantage of it. Call it statistics, gut feeling, or simply knowing what we would probably do, we key up on the snake corner and it pays off as we shoot what I think was Anthony Bowles. Daniel Camp fills out to snake corner for us while Stuart Ridgel keeps a lock on the head of the snake. Mike Brown applies pressure by taking D3 while Drew and Pate just keep dumping paint. Daniel knows the deal and feeds snake. He gets to snake 50 and gets two kills almost instantly. This leaves Notorious with dorito corner and snake can. This allows Stu, Drew, and Pate to come off jobs and join the fray. Harris gets a running start and leaps on his own sword taking Mr. Camp with him. My other three dispatch the last remaining Notorious player. Tie ball game 2-2.

We run a little “switcharoonie” on the next point. We get Daniel into the snake and release Stu a little earlier than normal. This works out well as Notorious does not go snake and we dig a kill out of the center. Daniel does a patient creep to the snake 50 and peels off Archie in the god bunker. Once he does this he immediately posts up on the snake side can (they were on the cross) who would have seen Archie die and have to come off his job to contest the obvious snake threat. The tactic works and Daniel gets another kill. This allows Daniel to stand tall, apply pressure to dorito corner, whom he shoots. Regrettably, the center juice box player (was it Alex Hubert?) gets caught in the crossfire and draws a minor. This means Notorious will be playing a body down the next point. Score 3-2 Canes

With 2 minutes left in the match, down by one, and us on the power play, we know they are going snake. We decide to get guns up with the plan to match on a delay. They make it in and somehow get three in there! And we end up losing our delay. All in the first 20 seconds! Me and two others in the pit swear we see a hit come off Harris and so does the ref. A minor goes up and that makes the three in the snake now 1. Archie gets on his stomach and posts up to shoot any fill into the snake with him. What he doesn’t know is his two players behind him have been eliminated. Stu gets the memo, goes to counter Archie, can’t see him and simply decides to just hit the buzzer. Score 4-2 Canes.

Stu didn’t let the time go under so I think there were still 13 seconds on the clock. We settle in for the oncoming onslaught. Notorious does the right thing, acts like it is 1854 at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War and they are the English Light Brigade Calvary. That would make us the Russians. Game.

*Zen Note – hats off to Ryan and the Notorious camp for making Sunday their 3rd pro event in and a 10th place finish.

VS ML Kings

We had done our homework on Kings. They had beat Houston Heat the day before after losing to Notorious so we wanted to understand the adjustment. One thing that was immediately noticeable when studying their tape were their guns off the break. We would plan to adjust for that. We noticed one other minor adjustment they had made and from their we planned on how to counter with our own small adjustment.

First point we wanted to give a slightly different look to throw them off from their scouting us. We knew that Carter liked to go to the snake corner, round it and crawl up to the snake. We take the snake and the center for three reasons: one, we use the center to shoot Carter and two, have the safety valve of having a snake asset in place to counter him if we miss. The third was to screw with their scouting sheets. I can be petty like that sometimes. It works as planned as we shoot Carter and begin peeling bodies. Kings concede the point 37 seconds in. 1-0 Canes

We get to see those solid guns of the Kings on the break next point as they shoot one and then we get a minor. So a fast 5 on 2 for the kings who answer and close the point out. Tied 1-1.

We pull back to base but with a D side rabbit. It appears the Kings had the same breakout but not the same goal. We lose one on the break but Pate gets into the snake. Pate’s presence seems to draw a lot of guns (all of them?). Pate misses two opportunities which we talked about after and he laughed…well, he didn’t laugh but if you know Pate… Kings filter to first D side wedge and it appears they are looking to try and lock the field up. Daniel Camp gets the memo and joins Pate in the snake since the Kings are so focused on Pate. We pinch out the D side attacker making it a 4 on 4. The inset wedge player for Kings decides there are plenty of guns to contain snake so he fills out into the dorito 2 in an effort to plug that hole. Pate wins the gunfight against Woodley who was in the snake can and proceeds to wrap and trap the god. Pate sneaks another one in on Kings’ home player. Barry tries to get crafty but Daniel had anticipated the maneuver. Danimal had moved to the inside of Pate and posted up for the cross shot and lands it. Kings concede to save time on clock. 2-1 Canes.

The Kings are sticking with the game plan they used to beat Heat. So we put a gun for snake runner and plan on matching him. We get the shot on the King’s snake player and have it to our own with two players. Nic can stay dorito way, Daniel is in there with him and can control wire, Britt is in wedge to control center and any late fill attempts… now we let the Kings run into guns. Charlie recognizes what we are up to and smartly concedes the point. 3-1 Canes

We are up two points with just under 5 minutes on the clock. Plenty of time and not necessary for anything too desperate from the Kings yet. But this layout on the break is like playing rock, paper, scissors. We decide to spread the field, dig in like an Alabama tick, and hope to catch the King’s push. The Kings take the snake and the center. Kyle Barry loses a gun fight dorito side and takes an early walk. I was not upset about that. We pick up on the center and start shooting the bounce. Sure enough, one of them finds a home on Woodley’s pack. Minor penalty goes up and we are now up bodies 5 on 2. Unfortunately, Ridgel gets team killed going to assassinate the last two and Pate finally allows that mini cake to get too small. One of the last two Kings takes a walk. As the last King tries to push through the guns of Bell and Camp, Mike Brown shows good situational awareness and just goes and gets the buzzer. 4-1 Canes.

Both of us get 5 out alive. The Kings cleverly filter Woodley from home under the gun to the snake after taking the snake corner and putting the wedge in play. Woodley is joined by another King (Calleja maybe?) but as soon as that happens we shoot their Wedge over watch. We give them one back as Stu takes the walk shortly after. Then Woodley and Calleja put together a smart push and just start stacking my guys. 4-2 with approximately 50 seconds left.

We know the push is coming snake way so we get guns up on it and it pays off. We get the one and the secondary snake fill as well. We had discussed prior to this point that, if we had the body advantage at 20 seconds, lets go and try to get that point to better our spread. Stuart and Pate finish off the last and Ryan Williamson flies in to get the point. A well executed match. We didn’t have to show too much, we got away with a fun play on the first point, and now we are feeling it.

VS Heat

This is the match we were looking forward to. Heat has got the best of us 3 out of the last 4 meetings and we wanted them to know we are getting better and better with each lesson. We knew we had made Sunday so it was time to reach into our bag of tricks and show the paintball world why we are here. We had a completely different strategic approach for this game based off being able to scout them for 3 matches. We saw some things we wanted to exploit and we would get the opportunity. But as always, whenever you are playing Heat, you are playing some of the best to ever play the game. So we would have to execute at a higher level than we had been. But the Canes are dangerous when we are having fun and we were in a really good mood. That, and if you had scouted us for three matches, you didn’t see too much.

The first point Heat does what we thought they would do. We make a stack audible and shoot Federov off the break. They went short snake way but we didn’t. We go straight to the 50 and wrap but keep pressure on the interior. That generates another kill from Heat’s back center. We pick up Tyler on the fill out to snake can and Connor Kelley gets the minor to finish the point. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to set the pace, bloody the nose a little bit, impose our will. 1-0 Canes

The next point both teams mirror each other up and we both shoot a player out of the back center. We know we have to keep the pressure and keep paint in the air early. We end up shooting Conner Kelley giving us the 4 on 3 advantage. We were in complete control now. Heat’s center juice box has to contain D side. Chad George is now dominated by two snake side guns, and Federov is dominated by two D side guns. Then we make a blunder. Daniel sees the opportunity to feed the snake and really put Heat on their heels. But this doesn’t get communicated to Pate who starts a rope on Chad as Daniel launches. That rope finds the side of Daniel’s head. Yes… I met both Daniel and Pate at the net for that one 😉 But Britt makes up for it by shooting Chad George as he tries to sneak his way in the snake. Federov then tries to go coast to coast on his own back line and eats one. We are now in a 3 on 1 scenario and I’m expecting Todd to blow the horn any second. And he does. 2-0 Canes

We decide now is the time to give Heat a special look. I wish I could take credit for it but Stu is the one that suggested hitting the gas. And I will always listen to my guys when they are feeling it. And man did the initial execution of the play look pretty. We kill two on the break but lose one. Heat owns the first baby dorito, the snake can and the god bunker. But we have two in the snake with support and the juice box with eyes on D side for containment (or so we thought). Obviously, it would have been stronger had we not lost the body but still, we are set up. We set the trap, and Harmon takes the cheese and gets shot by Nic. However, while this is happening, Captain America, Ryan Moorehead is moving down the D side. Stuart makes a tactical retreat and over slides the bunker. Ryan gets a shot in on him. But Chad George saw the cheese that killed his teammate and says to himself, I want some of that cheese too and gets clipped as well. Now it’s a 3 on 1 with Moorehead on our side of the field. Nic starts moving for the buzzer. Todd Martinez knows the deal and concedes the point with just under 5 minutes left. 3-0 Canes.

Now we are really feeling it. But we know from practice, you can score points in less than 30 seconds (Diesel had done this to us – fastest we did was 38 seconds). And Heat was about to give it one hell of try. As Matty Marshall likes to say, they are known for stealing matches. We match up and trade center players. The only issue is, our snake containment was who we lost on the break…and we didn’t change jobs fast enough. Heat has this really good balanced attack and they show it on this point. Heat gets into the snake and Federov presses the issue D side. Daniel takes the walk allowing Federov to press further. He continues to press and closes out the point shooting out snake can and Home after we lost D side corner. 3-1 Canes

With 2:19 left on the clock, and down by 2, Heat will more than likely risk two assets. Being ahead, we decide to risk one asset and get guns up. Both teams kill one on the break but Heat makes the snake. But then we lose our D side attacker. 4 on 3. We get another back. 3 on 3. Heat starts the push and the guys are holding. Pew pew pew! Bodies are dropping everywhere! Its a 2 on 2! Daniel shoots Chad George but Tyler Harmon shoots Drew.

Now before I say anything further, I want you the reader to know I was standing dead even with Daniel Camp in the pit. There is a ref on the base line looking towards me and Daniel. So the ref and I both had good views. There was a second ref who was in position as well just off corner.

Daniel transitions to the inside of his bunker as Tyler tries to bunker him. The exchange is BANG BANG! We are talking micro seconds. The two refs ON THE FIELD call it a mutual. No point. 3-1 Canes.

Or so we thought…

The Head Ref listens to a dead player (Tyler) as he walks off the field complaining. We are already in the pit drawing up the next play. Damage and Dynasty are coming back on the field for their next point. The Damage/Dynasty point starts. We are a minute into the Damage/Dynasty match and we have just completed drawing up our next play when Ultimate Ref Jason Trosen taps me on the shoulder and says, “Mike, the head ref has overturned the call on the field. You guys get a major and will be playing with three.” I plead the case that the refs were in position to see that it was bang bang. How can the Head ref, who is in a camera stand just off center of the field, see through the bunker (can) on how the exchange went down? Jason says he will review the tape but that it has to be “indisputable” to overturn the Head Refs call. So we prepare a play with 3 guys and a play with 5 guys. Jason reviews it and says my players gun was down and we will be starting with 3… it is what it is.

If they can play reindeer games, so can we. My guys come up with a clever ploy as a little “poke in the eye” of the establishment. At 25 seconds, two of my guys start to run on the field with their gear saying, “They over turned it!” with absolutely no intention of stepping in bounds or breaking the 50. This panics Heat, and they call a time out. We were giggling a bit. Talk about icing the kicker… Ultimately, we get a good laugh out of it and that’s about it. Heat launches the power play. We make our spots and start to wheel and deal. We get 1 and then …another. It’s looking good but then a hopper hit gets us the minor letting Heat close out with 35 seconds left.

We know you can win a point on this layout quickly. As I stated earlier, our fastest clocked at practice was 38 seconds. So we keep those plays ready. And were was the litmus test opportunity. The full send works but it turns out you need about 37 seconds (there was only 35 left). So 2 seconds short on winning that point.

I remember thinking…we are already Sunday club bound. And we have overcome a lot of adversity to get here. You’re Todd Martinez and you look around at that stable of talent in your pit… and you are probably telling yourself, you win this scenario 7, maybe 8 times out of 10? You like those odds. So you’re probably going to get your 5 out alive in a pocket, maybe risk one asset but lean on your gun-fighting to win the day. And I would agree that is probably the right call. But we are the New Orleans Hurricanes and we know that you know that we know you know this. “They will never see it coming. These guys don’t have to fight every day like we do. They fight to win paintball games. We fight to live, to eat, to put food on the table! We are not the same. Lets show them.” I didn’t really say that but I felt it inside…Kinda. And isn’t that what this world has become? All feelings based or some stuff like that? Anyway, I digress…

We throw Britt Simpson into Dorito 2 on the break and Nic Rippel into the snake, we get two guns up at home, and take the snake side can. Heat goes short snake side with god, snake can, two at home, and a rabbit out to D corner who quickly takes the 2nd dorito. Our statistics were right again. The stage is set. I knew if we survived the break we would win. And we did. They shoot Stuart out of the center but before they can call the kill, we shoot Conner out of the god and Nic wraps the 50 snake to shoot Tyler Harmon in the face. 4 on 3 advantage to us. Federov sneaks a ball onto Britt making it a 3 on 3. But with Nic on their side of the snake, Daniel Camp sneaks up into the snake as well and catches Federov napping. This frees Pate up to take ground through the dorito side center cut. Pate shoots Dizon in the snake can leaving Mishka by himself in the juice box. Pate launches drawing Mishka’s gun but Pate misses. Daniel launches forcing Mishka to contend with him allowing Nic to give Mishka a winning back message. We were all excited and I let it go this time. I even joined in.

We were now undefeated in prelims for the second time in our pro careers, had won our bracket for the third time (Chicago ’22, Lonestar, and this event), and had made our 3rd Sunday in a row this season (5 total out of 8 events). We were feeling good, had met two goals for the event, and were within striking distance of another goal for the year. But we would need to do some homework, get some rest, and be at the field early to scout the winner of the wildcard match featuring Damage/Revo.

I was confident Damage was going to beat Revo. But NRG Elite had caught the boys from Florida a little flat footed and Revo has proven they can be a spoiler in the past. But not this time. It was sheer dominance from the Damage camp. We watched Damage’s loss to Dynasty and cross referenced that against what we watched them do against Revo. With that data, we felt very good going into the match as we felt there were some opportunities in Damage’s breakouts we could exploit to take better position, and to win that “scramble” on the break.

VS Damage

First point we knew Damage would go short. We also felt confident we would make the snake. We double the gun snake way and break snake. We get our kill on the snake can, place an asset to keep Keith out of the snake, and Nic Ripple goes straight to the 50 snake looking to wrap and trap. Phase 1 complete. Phase 2 is to get Daniel in the snake with Nic. We know we can sneak Mike Brown out to the corner and get a small push that way as well. Damage has the god bunker, home, inset dorito, and a dorito corner who quickly makes dorito 1. Daniel joins Nic within the first 40 seconds of the point, Mike Brown has already snuck out and eventually gets to dorito 2, Stu has the cut between god and snake, and Drew has doritos. The guys are executing pretty flawlessly. We are now set up to pressure and squeeze Damage all within the first minute and a half. Then, at almost 4 minutes in, Nic gets clipped hopping. This is not the end of the world though. It’s a 4 on 4 and we still own position. Mike Brown is now in dorito 3 and gets a shot in on Keith. But it bounces… Jason Edwards gets out of home and into the snake can and Keith decides now’s the time to get out of Dodge and into the snake. Stuart re-positions into snake can to support Daniel. Jason counters and fills the snake corner. The next exchange to go down is between Daniel and Keith. Personally, I felt as if Daniel got the best of Keith but it is what it is. Mutual exchange in the snake. 3 on 3. Stuart reads the situation and takes the snake 50 but didn’t see Jason Edwards move to the 1st snake brick nor does he hear Mike Brown calling it. Jason gets the drop on Stu quickly followed by Mike Brown catching a ball as well. Six and a half minutes into the point, I concede it. We should have won that point. We all knew it. I think Damage knew it too. But their gun fighting skills mixed with our mistakes snatched that one away from us. Still plenty of paintball left to play. 0-1 Damage.

Damage recognizes they don’t want us in the snake early and in order to ensure that doesn’t happen, they put three guns shooting that way. Rainey in the pocket, Jason from home, and I’m pretty sure their center juice box was shooting that way too. This successfully chews up our snake side. With over 8 minutes on the clock and only being down by 1, I’m going to give my remaining 3 at least a minute to a minute and a half to pull something off. Especially since Stu starts pressing the issue D side. But they get a shot in on one of my guys leaving us in a 2 on 5. I concede the point at just under 7. Time to take a deep breath and regroup. 0-2 Damage.

Point three was another point we should have had in the bag. We’re pretty sure Damage is going to get guns up, make primaries and lock it down. And for the most part, we call it right. We get Britt into the inset wedge and Nic out to the snake corner. They peel Aaron Pate off which is an issue for the game plan but not the end of the world, especially since we shoot Keith in our first engagement. 4 on 4 but I see Chad round that dorito corner. Luckily, he posts up at the first dorito. Nic takes the snake but Rainey makes a good move to the snake corner. We catch Rainey getting a bit sloppy. 4 on 3 advantage us. I’m feeling confident we are going to win this point. Jason Edwards makes his way out to the snake corner while he still has Chad in the dorito 1 and a dorito corner. Britt gets outside to dorito 2, Drew gets behind Nic in snake can and Stu gets over dorito way with Britt. Good, we are positioning correctly to bully Jason. Britt and Stu have pressed the action dorito side and Britt gets a kill on Jason in the corner. Outstanding. 4 on 2 our favor, let’s close as a team. But then I hear it. We have the kill count wrong. It’s kill 3 but my guys are calling kill 2. This is not good, especially for us and the clock. And then Britt loses a gun fight. We still have Nic and Drew in the snake and Stu to keep the two Damage players in front of him honest. But then we force the issue snake way and Nic gets picked up. 2 on 2, Stu sees the seam and launches but his timing is just off as Damage turns just in time to pick him up and he takes no one with him. Drew tries. I concede. 0-3 Damage.

We’ve been here before. We know how to do this. We know what has to happen, we know the deal. With just over 3 minutes and 3 points needed to win, we have the play and we know we will get away with it at least once. We need to win in no more than a minute 10. We know Damage is confident with a lock down. We get two guns up on Keith and get the kill then flood the snake side with assets and use one gun D side as we are confident Chad will hole up at dorito corner on the cross (he actually went inset dorito which was even better). Nic gets to their side of the snake and goes to work. His first victim is home. Stu, whose one gun is D side containment, filters to center 50 to continue his containment but this also put himself in position for a launch if necessary. He knows that center juice box is the hold up and trades his body for it. Camp is now with Nic and launches to get the last two. Drew Bell cruises in to hit the buzzer. We took approximately 20-25 seconds more than I would have liked. But a point is a point and we can work with it. 1-3 Damage.

We go back to our first play. We get the kill on Rainey again and Nic goes straight to the 50 snake. But Chad gets to the dorito 2. I should have anticipated that and that’s on me. That cross shot shuts down any center push and has a great bounce shot into the snake. And sure enough, he catches Stu on the center push. Nic makes a great shot on Keith Brown. I’m watching the clock figuring we have to win in the next 10 seconds to give ourselves a shot to tie. Drew backs up Nic in an attempt to bully a gun and get another body. They shoot the home just as we lose Britt on the d side making it a 2 on 2. At this point it is around 20 seconds or so and its for pride. A valiant effort by Nic and Drew but Damage survives as the clock hits zero.

Congratulations to Damage. What an absolutely gritty and determined event for them. They fought tooth and nail all event and showed us what it takes to win on Sunday. Thank you for the lesson gentlemen. Well done. Hats off to that team. As I was apt to say in the booth while commentating on the semis, “Incredible”.

Jocko Willink says that, “When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.” And he is absolutely, 100% correct. This is the root of the Hurricanes success. Our camaraderie isn’t by accident. It’s our culture. We have a strong sense of trust, accountability, and togetherness with each other and when it comes to the team’s goals, we make sure we are all on the same page and in sync before we take the first step. I’ve said it 100 times and I will say it 1000 more, I’m lucky to be part of this team. They deserve credit for their hard work and determination. I ask for 150%, they give me 200. And I love them for it.

To finish where we started this blog, there is a saying, “The largest room in the world is the room for improvement”. We have walked through several of those rooms and will continue to open door after door. We ARE improving. Every event is a new lesson, and we pay attention to those lessons. We are students of the game and we are learning at an exponential rate. We win as a team and we learn as a team. Again, proud of my guys composure and discipline this event. But we recognize we need a little more. So we are going to go find it, learn it, grow from it, and be better for it. See everyone in Chicago.

Be water, my friends.




2023 NXL Lone Star Open Event recap

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

Perseverance isn’t always about winning and losing. I believe it’s about showing up, saying “I am”, rising to the occasion, and doing well. As my friend and coach of Austin Notorious Ryan Gray said, “Don’t worry about being better, just be good.” But this is professional paintball… and to stay on the map you’ve got to keep showing up and being consistent. Our draw for this event would be what I deemed, “Crucible, The Sequel”. When you are facing a determined Tampa Bay who has pulled two seconds the last two events against Dynasty, the super star line up of AC Diesel, an intelligent and chip on their shoulder Baltimore Revo and your tier 5 team is the Russian Legion, it’s going to be a tough event.

But I think this team strives on “tough”, we live for that pressure. That’s why we are here, to see where we stand. And there is nothing more exciting than standing in front of those odds and saying “We’re right here. Come and get it.” We are showing up at every practice, putting in the work, pushing each other, enjoying the process and the journey. I know this because of the HUGE problem I had headed into this event. And quite frankly, I hope to have it EVERY event… Every one of my guys were playing well at practice. So well in fact, I had no idea who I was starting. I was getting production out of everyone and as a coach, this makes it difficult to call line positioning. In other words, it is a good problem to have.

We scrimmaged Blast Camp and the Latin Saints the weekend before so we felt we had seen a good amount of looks. We were about to find out in our first match.

VS Baltimore Revo

It’s rare to have an opportunity to scout your first opponent. But that’s what happened leading up to our first match. We were able to scout the Revo vs Russians match. Matty Marshall had asked me to commentate that set actually and, at first, I thought no, I need to scout with my guys and stay on the same page. But then a conversation between some of us helped me decide, what better vantage point to scout from! Of course, we had the team scouting the game as well. When I got in the booth, I saw that I would be commentating with the legend himself, Colt Roberts. I decided right then and there, just let these two legends talk and I’ll throw some color in here and there. Colt is a solid guy and I have enjoyed getting to know him more. Oh, and for the record, you can’t see the 50 from up in that booth.

*Zen Note – one of my personal goals this season was that if I ever got invited into the booth to commentate, I would not embarrass myself or sound stupid. Not sure if I can mark that goal off just yet.

Even though we were allowed to scout Revo, they lost. This meant they would have to adjust in some way unless they told themselves it wasn’t the game plan, it was the individual play. But we felt very good about our game plan based off what we saw.

We wanted to apply pressure the first point. We knew Revo used some of the bunkers similar to us so we thought, let’s be first. Our scouting appeared to show a hole with Revo’s approach. They seemed to know what bunkers to leverage but not necessarily how to use them, what job was what and when. So I knew there would be opportunity. We made our spots, quickly pressed our secondaries, kept up the pressure and played what I would consider the best point of our event. Not a bad way to start. We struck first with 5 alive.

Next point, our guns off break were solid. We shot the snake side “can” who in turn got a minor. Revo’s snake player either left early or wasn’t touched up. Either way, kill 3 on the break. However, Revo’s two remaining players made a good read. One made it wide dorito side and the other took the snake side “brick”. In doing so, they peeled off 2 of my guys making it a 3 on 2 (advantage still Canes). Jacob Searight clocked in and countered dorito way. The snake “brick” player had to fight too many fronts, eats one, leaving it a 3 on 1. We know where the last player is, it’s a matter of time, and Revo quickly conceded.

We felt they would want to spread the field a bit but the question was which route. We shot their first D side attacker on the break (we chose wisely) but allowed Revo to get in the snake and get to dorito corner. We gave them a body of our own dorito side when we didn’t check off and then we lost a gun fight snake side. But as the scramble starts, Justin Bailey saw an opportunity and took full advantage. He shot the snake insert bunker which was acting as over watch on snake and then traded in spectacular fashion with Revo’s D side “two” leaving just Revo’s snake player. My guys stayed disciplined knowing the situation. We were up points and up bodies. No need to go get this guy. They kept him contained and let the clock be our friend. We shot their last player as he tried a tactical retreat out of the snake and Revo conceded the point.

Revo had great guns off the break shooting two of us on the snake side at the beginning of the 4th point. We tapped their first snake player but Revo did a good job of containment and winning guns fights. It was a 4 on 2 and we were going to make them hit the buzzer. Revo did hit it to put a point on the board.

We returned the favor the next point with our own guns on the break and flooded the snake the moment the yellow flag went up on Revo. Nic traded with Revo’s snake making it a 4 on 2 advantage Canes. Justin Bailey once again makes a great read in knowing the situation and took over snake duties in front of Daniel Camp. However, Mr. Camp said, “Can’t have you taking all the kills this point Bailey” and scalped his friend and teammate. We let Revo get through the monster truck gap D side. However, Mike Brown said, “Not today – please exit the field” and got the kill leaving only Revo’s snake player yet again. Revo’s coach obviously wanted to give his player some time to make something happen. When he retreated, I remember thinking, “Good. Play defense and let the time go.” Their ears must have been burning because they conceded the point.

We were in X-ball now with a little over 4 minutes on the clock. We each traded bodies on the break but Revo got into that D side “brick” on the break. We had a communication mix up here with a code being called that was not accurate. This caused one of us to be peeled off looking into what he thought was a safe zone and we were lucky that same call didn’t get Nic popped as he took the snake insert. Nic loses a gunfight, followed shortly by another mistake by us. Not to take anything away from Revo but they didn’t really win that point as much as we just simply shot ourselves in the foot. Sloppy.

We shot one off the break in what would be the last point of the match. We knew where we wanted to be and each player knew their role. We successfully set up when we got Drew Bell into the snake side wedge and Mike Brown into Dorito one. I loved how my guys maintained zone control, let Revo kill themselves, then recognized the opportunity to go get the additional point for spread. We won the match but there were some obvious small issues that we would need to improve if we wanted to do well this event.


We had a team discussion after the match and felt prepared for Diesel. But it was not to be. A severe lightning and hail storm came in. The NXL made the right call to shut it down and make an adjustment to the schedule for the next day. The Canes would have to play 3 matches Saturday with one set between each. First Legions, then Damage, and finally AC. We would have to be on top of our scouting/adjustment game.

VS Red Legion

I felt Legion was going to try and slow it down a bit and suck us into gunfights. We also knew they gunned heavy for the snake side. You have to respect the Legion’s guns off the break. But I’m still going to test them. Low and behold, they shot our snake runner on the break. However, we were in this situation a lot at practice and we stuck to the game plan with my guys making the appropriate adjustment. Mike Brown got wide D side, Drew Bell filtered up to snake side “wedge”, Daniel Camp filtered into the snake insert allowing Stu the freedom to play a little. From there, it became a game of communication and zone control. We took the body advantage somewhere around 5 minutes in (4 on 3). Stu got caught probing but Legions D side launched to trade with Mike Brown. I watched as my snake side starts eating that player up before he got to MB. Sure enough, flag in the air which pulls the remaining Legion players. We go up one after an almost 7 minute point. Unfortunately, that would be our last point scored for the match.

We went short and planned on working our way into the snake after our initial set up. The Legion made it into the snake on the break though. Normally, not an issue as that player can be somewhat contained with our set up. However, the wind kicked up and created an opening (bunker blows to the side) that allowed a ball through on one of my snake side guys followed by another death from our “god” a few moments later. 5 on 3 advantage to the Legion who also had the snake presence. Now we have a problem as this is not… how should we say?… optimum. Drew actually bounced the Legion player in the snake if I recall correctly which would have relieved tremendous pressure (woulda coulda shoulda). Shortly after, Stu got a shot on Khiril. He got shot as well though. Then disaster struck with Jacob Searight catching a ball too after having taken ground D side. Now its a 4 on 1 advantage Legion. Drew made a valiant effort but got caught. Even match now with just under 5 minutes left.

I thought we would get crafty and have Nic line up as normal but send him to snake wedge instead. The plan was to establish that gun early, work Daniel out snake way and let Bailey’s gun filter behind Daniel. Unfortunately, Legion went heavy pocket, getting all guns up and shot Nic on the break. Like I said, you have to respect their guns. Just didn’t see that one coming (statistics aren’t perfect). We were able to get out of the pocket… just not all of us. Daniel mirrored up the snake and Bailey got behind him. Stu had an untimely death. As soon as we lost Mike Brown, I felt it best to preserve the time. There was 3:30 or so left and I felt that was plenty of time for us to get that point back.

We had the game plan. We know the line to take. We know Legion will go for our normal set up. But if I am Legion, I would risk the body to the Dside corner to control inside while having my snake insert on the cross keep the mac truck gap full of paint. Because we know this, we know the hole and we exploited it. We got wide on both sides and Stu made the center to start the line. He shot the D side corner. The next step was crucial. He had to trade with the snake insert. He went to make the shot, and just missed it. Now… he should have stayed posted and let his teammates take the advantage created by his presence there. That snake insert had to call for help or fight him. Either way, this should mean that Mike Brown will only have one gun to beat in order to turn the field on the D side. Instead, Stu pulled back to the snake brick and tried to get creative inside. He ended up getting eliminated. I’m telling you, had he landed that shot on the snake insert who was cross, the probability of the Canes tying the match would have gone up exponentially. But I don’t and can’t blame Stu. It was a solid effort. There are four other players out there who are just as capable, too. We lost Mike Brown shortly after but got one back. We were now tied on bodies with both teams having 3. Once we hit the 1:30 mark, it was ride or die. The margin was imperative. Drew Bell made a huge play but made one small mistake. He cruises down the D side and shoots two of the three Legion players in the back but continues to get Malloy. If Drew shot the first two then stopped in his bunker before engaging Malloy, Nic would have shot Malloy in the back with enough time to get the buzzer. However, Drew got caught and Malloy had the wherewithal to put the home “aztec” between him and the snake side attack he knows is coming to get a ball on Nic. Then he hit the afterburners to increase their spread. So close. Not upset with my guys at all. We definitely learned some important lessons in that match.

VS Tampa Bay Damage

Before I get into this next one, I want to say that Joey Blute was one of the first big names in paintball to give the Canes some respect. I personally will always be grateful for that. Someone forwarded me a podcast he was on and he had some kind things to say about our program. And we appreciated it. With that, I have been looking forward to this match up for some time. I knew it would be a great test for us to see where we were on our journey. How can you not respect what Damage has accomplished? They are a talented program that plays great paintball. Not to be presumptive but both teams have a similar style and it was never more apparent than at this event. We were approaching the layout in a very similar fashion. But once we settle into an approach, we always ask ourselves, how do you beat it? We had scouted them and felt we had a good grasp on their tendencies. We had also discussed what went wrong in the Legion match… we weren’t moving and closing together as one. What I like to call the “scramble” was off timing wise. That was going to change and we were about to find out if our counter worked.

Damage came out with the double home/pocket break getting those solid guns of theirs up the first point. They ended up shooting our snake “one” off the rip… but we learned something there. We would change that route now since we had shown only two so far. During this point, Damage’s snake side “can” took one to the pack… no ref was in position but the one by the start box eventually saw it. The yellow flag went up on Damage. We stopped the bleeding with a reposition snake side and settled in now that we had the advantage… or so we thought. Two sloppy deaths by the Canes caused Drew and Daniel to have to force the issue. Daniel got picked off leaving Drew in a 1 vs 3 situation. I always give my guys a chance to pull something off but I didn’t like the set up. I conceded the point and Damage struck first.

After a polite request of my guys to play a little tighter, we returned to the box. This time we shot their dorito one attacker. He drew a minor penalty but we followed up with another kill giving us a 5 on 2 advantage. I heard the code for Chill Out Find the Last Two Bodies…good, very good. Once my guys identified that the last two Damage players are in the snake “tower” and the snake insert, they knew just how to turn the field. This is what situational drills gets you boys and girls. My guys perform it flawlessly. Stu pulled back with the data and began the quarterbacking. The guys provided a quick clinic on working together with repositioning to close the point out. We re-positioned to pressure the tower while the two others bully the snake insert to get a body through the gap. Then bully again, all while our snake presence kept them honest. Stu launched and johnny is your uncle. Tie match.

The next point was an interesting one. Stu looked into a ball and Damage took that 50 D side “brick”. But Damage doesn’t have a gun protecting the D side gap which was surprising (missed assignment is my only guess). This allowed Jacob Searight to land undetected just shy of the dorito 50 and he began peeling bodies. He got four of the 5 with the 4th being the last Damage player trying to run him down. Searight stood his ground and took the Damage player with him. The remaining Canes on the field made the decision to let time click and force the concession.

We decided to switch Stu off his role and gave him a little freedom to play. We placed Drew Bell on containment. We shot Damage’s D side once again on the break. Then we immediately took a center presence, quickly followed up with a shift to the snake side brick. With our presence there, we could shut down D side with one gun (you concede the 100 but that’s about it) at least long enough to get some action going snake way. We were somewhat foiled when our D side corner took a ball (he was contingency). No matter, we fed the snake and went for another set up with two in the snake (the “two” spot can hold the cross now while the snake “brick” is over-watch allowing snake one to go to work). We matched them D side to keep them honest. We were now in position and I was feeling confident. Damage would have to press the issue eventually. That or they would try to suck us into gun fights (a lesson learned in the previous match). Survey said they press but over-watch worked (Hope Agent Smith’s Testicles are okay). The slow steady squeeze paid off and Damage conceded the point. Up by 2

We went with a base play to get guns up off the break. They shot one of ours off snake side but we shot two of theirs off the snake side as well. We shoot a third and then spread. We knew the situation and closed together. I told the guys prior to the point, when we win the point, make them concede. As the clock ticked away, I thought to myself, they are doing the math and thinking margin, this is why they are letting the clock roll. They finally conceded with about 1:30 left.

Because of the score, we decided we wanted to go aggressive and try something. Like I said earlier, we train scenarios. We knew Damage wanted to get wide. So we snuck Stu into the snake side “brick” to look D side (back up is Searight in the Snake insert on the cross). It paid off with Damage’s two D side attackers going into the meat grinder. Stu heard the gun on the other side of his bunker as he had company and decided on the trade. The rest broke down with Damage throwing their last two bodies down the snake side. Searight traded with Lackey to leave Justin Bailey and Aaron Pate on the field with one of the Edward brothers. Bailey saw the opportunity since Edwards had to contend with Pate right in front of him. While Bailey drew the gun, Pate snuck a ball in and turned on his own afterburners to get us a slightly bigger margin. I felt like the reverse Ryan Brand as I was holding my hand up to say “wait until 5 seconds” lol. Pate waits until under 5 seconds to hit the buzzer. Great match against a great team.

So now our fate is in our own hands. The goal we set for ourselves was to make Sunday. The top 20 teams in paintball would not make this easy. We were about to face off against AC Diesel who had just beat Red Legion. But we had a chance to scout them 3 times. Interesting fact: I was asked what I thought their adjustment would be and I said, “If I’m coaching, I’m not necessarily changing the game plan as much as I am moving Mouse back to the snake and putting Rabackoff behind him.” It appeared that they did this… I think. Anyway, based off the three previous matches, that would be the only real offensive push they would have or so it felt. That, and they didn’t seem to be connecting cross field either. Sometimes you have to listen to that gut. So we decided to play a patient game, get the key spots, get the key eliminations, and press…slowly. Margin didn’t matter to us at this point. We really just needed the win.

The first point we matched up with identical break outs but each with a different emphasis. We wanted to fill the Snake wedge again but first stopped off in the tower to try a bounce shot. Their D side “can” was playing inside and the bounce was meant to kill that. It didn’t pay dividends though so we got back into main purpose mode. With Mouse on the field and in the snake, we had several contingencies if he made the snake 50. We weren’t going to give him a shot and, while difficult, you can make life miserable for the snake on this layout while continuing zone control. When Mouse came to our side of the field during that first long point, we went with one of the contingencies. Stu launches on the inside from the snake “wedge”. He actually hit mouse with his first ball through the gap as he launched (drills people… this is why we do drills). This also put Stu in an improved position in order to address Rabackoff who had fed the snake. Stu then scalped JRab. Now that we were up bodies and we had burned plenty of time off the clock, Stu tactically retreated back to snake “wedge” to communicate the situation and close the point out with his teammates all next to him. I think after that, we landed a shot on the god bunker and Diesel was forced to concede after an almost 6 minute point.

The next point we risked Nic on the deep route to snake insert and he made it. Diesel got in the snake fast to slow our roll D side but it began playing out like I suspected. Their only real attack was snake. They didn’t appear confident in a center or D side risk. So we kept assets on it. But then something incredible happened. JRab pulls a Daniel and shot his own snake player… right when he got on our side of the field. This made it a 5 on 3 advantage for the Canes with about 4 minutes on the clock. Some one on the Canes is living right or maybe all that praying I do for the guys is paying off. At this point, I was not upset with our positioning (I was concerned about it and wanted us to take at least one, maybe two secondaries sooner). About a minute later, Diesel had seen enough and conceded the point leaving them just under 3 minutes to score one for the tie or two for the win.

The last point was chaos. Nic took a relatively early walk when Mouse got in the snake fast and early. Mouse then snagged himself another Cane from snake “tower” and someone shot our back center “home” (if I had to guess it was Jrab who secondaried behind Mouse into the snake). But no one on Diesel accounted for Daniel “Danimal” Camp who stomped out that fire with a fury by clapping Mouse. But Danimal wasn’t done nor content. It was a 5 on 2 advantage Diesel but Daniel shot not one, not two, but THREE MORE Diesel players after he clapped Mouse. Mike Brown got taken out and it came down to a 1 on 1. I thought FOR SURE Daniel was going to get his fourth 1v1 coin and maybe even win play of the prelims. He knows to protect the buzzer. I am pretty sure he put a ball on Mark Johnson but I guess it didn’t break or maybe it did. Either way, he isn’t eliminated. Mark ends up slipping a ball onto Daniels foot and Diesel was on the board with under 10 seconds.

Diesel wants to play it so we play. They get one of us, we get all five of them. The sequel to the “Crucible” was over… and we were top of our bracket.

So there we were… Our second Sunday in a row at the second event of the year of our second season as a professional team. It has been said that, discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. I feel my guys showed that this event. The discipline and composure (our culture) continues to be our strength.

We understood that we would be playing the winner of the wild card match between Dynasty and ML Kings. We went home and did our homework on both teams. Then we showed up early to the field to see what adjustments, if any, the two teams had made. The match started out rather fast paced. But that second point would be the determining factor. Kings were in position but when they lost their snake attacker and the remaining Kings failed to produce or show urgency, they concede the point with a little under 2 minutes. On this layout, on Sunday, against Dynasty, two points in two minutes would prove to be a herculean task. And that would, in fact, be the case. We would be playing Dynasty.

This would be our first time playing Dynasty. But we were all genuinely looking forward to it. If you want to be a contender, you have to beat the best and they have certainly proven to be one of, if not the greatest team to play the game. We felt it would be a good match up. And for the most part, it was.

The first point was a great give and take. We ended up with the body advantage (4 on 3). We made one small tactical blunder I feel. We were in the snake, the snake “wedge” and the snake side can (dorito one as well). My snake side “can” saw that our “tower” was eliminated. We had been using this to slow D side progression. Dynasty had gotten a body wide d side, so he felt it may be more important to fill that role instead of backing up our snake one and getting in there with him. Understandable, but I feel we should have pressed the body advantage here. Dynasty did get two in the snake which made things difficult for our snake “wedge” who, eventually caught a ball. At the same time, I think Dynasty got through our defense on dorito side which now created additional pressure in this 3 on 3 situation. Our snake finally lost a gun fight and just like that Dynasty turned the table to a one body advantage (3 on 2). I let it go a little longer than I should have. My D side player was showing body language that he was going to do something. But when I realized he wasn’t going to try and make something happen, I concede the point.

Next point, we executed the set up well. We positioned well on our secondaries and we knew the line. Stu does NOT miss his first shot this time and took that super important snake insert out of the game. Unfortunately, he looked into a ball from the snake can as he wrapped the inside to try and get the drop on the D side. Our snake got shot shortly after giving the body advantage to Dynasty again. But Jacob Searight and Drew Bell pieced together an offensive push to even it up again on the D side. Excellent execution there. With the chaos that Searight created by advancing onto Dynasty’s side, Aaron Pate made the RIGHT DECISION to run down Ryan Greenspan in the snake. Greenspan’s over watch was looking D side. Pate recognized this and launched. But Greenspan somehow understands the distraction and that he doesn’t have his over watch. He popped the top and put one ball on Pate’s hopper. Pate obviously doesn’t feel it and finished his run to shoot Greenspan. Major penalty drawn on Pate. This pulled our remaining players and we had to concede the point. And THAT is the chess game. Chess with guns. Greenspan’s processing speed. And that is the small difference that makes a big difference. If Pate got him clean or perhaps sits another second, it may have been a different point. Either way, we are now down by 2 with 3 minutes left. Not much different than the Kings save for an additional minute…

We had to go aggressive and we always have a few tricks up our sleeve. We CAN play fast. We got to where we are today partially by doing that. We took the 50s and Ridgel knew he had to get that snake insert off the field. He traded his body to do it. Bodies everywhere. We missed their D side but Daniel Camp once again knew the score and got to the buzzer beating Dynasty’s D side runner trying to do the same. We were on the board.

We went aggressive again because, well, we are down 1 with a little over a minute and a half. We had to take ground EARLY because of the way the field plays and where we knew Dynasty wanted to be. We lost Nic at snake 1 but we snuck Mike Brown up the D side to dorito 4 as well as established the center presence with Stu. Stu lost a gun fight which was essentially the first domino to fall on this come back. We had to press with under a minute. Daniel, Mike Brown, and Drew Bell all made valiant efforts at the 50s to make something happen.

There appeared to be a little tomfoolery that point with two dynasty players. I say this based off what several VIP watchers told me but hey… it is what it is. 6 seconds left down 3-1.

We decided to play the point. At first we told ourselves, no penalties, go have fun but then it became… you know what? I don’t care if you get a penalty. You make sure you put paint on as many of them as you can. Our way of a last hurrah, charge of the light brigade kind of thing to say, “we are not afraid”. We of course draw the penalties and they get another point but… it sure was cool. My guys still showed sportsmanship after the point because we are well raised southern boys.

After we lost to Dynasty, Daniel Camp put it all into perspective and I can’t thank him enough for laying it on the guys. He said, “We are climbing Mt. Everest. What we are trying to do as a team in the pro division is supposed to be hard. We are going to have some “cold dark nights on the side of Everest” as we try to get to the top and we should expect that and not be disappointed or deterred by it. We are on the right track and have to just take the wins and losses in stride. It’s what we signed up for and success only is going to come after failure.” Love that dude…. so very true. Couldn’t have said it better.

He’s right. Mindset is key. We are always working to improve, and we’re always going to be critiqued on our next performance. In this sport, it isn’t necessarily about what you’ve done but what you do next. There is always room to grow. Here’s the thing, we will always have a goal every event and we will always have a plan (or three) to meet that goal. We have to be willing to take risks and make mistakes but also do what we can to mitigate them. And we have to do it as a team. That’s where we have seen our greatest successes, when we have done it together.

We are stronger together… and that includes all the Hurricane family, not just the guys in the jerseys. Our pit crew, our scouting crew, our family, our friends, our fans and our sponsors. We couldn’t and wouldn’t be where we are now without them. And we can’t thank you all enough. It’s coming… we just have to keep up the perseverance.

Be Water My Friends.



NXL Sunshine State Major 2023 Recap

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

When the draw was first released, I was very pleased. I knew that if we could get through that crucible of a prelims to start the season off, it would not only be a good event, but set the stage for the rest of the season for the squad. Getting tested early is always a good thing.
Here is how I looked at it. Heat was the #2 team in the world headed into this event and I wanted them first. They would be a great test early on for our unorthodox approach to the layout. We had Revo next. I also wanted to catch them early. Revo is one of those teams that usually the deeper you meet them, the better they are. Obviously Mark Johnson’s power moves in the off season with AC Diesel would make for a rather difficult test for our sophomore debut. And finally, my friends Shane Pestana and Mike Paxson coaching and rebuilding the Ironmen was going to be a “hum-dinger” for sure.

There were two ways to play this field successfully in my view. Knowing where your opponent is and where he wants to be is an important aspect of the game (duh). My approach to this particular layout was you either took ground early and aggressively, then permeated and let your opponent fight his way to you, forcing moves, or you sat back, let things develop a little, and then threw a well planned/timed counter punch. This concept of mine was initially met with some consternation from my guys. And that was understandable. We like data and knowing where people are for zone control, counter punching, and offense. But you couldn’t always know where an opponent was on this field. Sure, you had an IDEA…but you didn’t really know for sure until you did and even then, he may have switched positions seconds later. So, we had to make fear of the unknown our ally. And we did. We did this through intelligent assumption (we will say deductive reasoning) and focusing on our communication. With the right discipline and comms, the guys would discern the data.

Vs Houston Heat

We wanted to get a little aggressive the first point. We pushed dorito side. The penalty on Stuart Ridgel was absolute horse manure. I watched him from the pit because he and I discussed getting his gun up and moving from center up into the center aztec to make a read. When he went into the bunker he steps on a ball and it squirts paint up on the back of his left thigh. I know this because I watched it happen. I thought the ref was headed in to wipe him off…
Anytime you are in a 2 body deficit against Heat, it is grim. Time was important on this field (I had determined 70% “slow” and 30% “fast” at the previous weekend’s practice) so when we lost Britt almost 3 minutes after the penalty, I figured I’d give my guys a few seconds to dig a surprise kill out, especially when the two are Drew Bell and Aaron Pate. Heat did press but I decided to get 5 guys back out there and start fresh. 0-1.

Our guns on break and zone control gave us a 2 body advantage on the next point. Then we began our slow meticulous squeeze. My guys didn’t get in a hurry, understood their roles and what needed to happen when we drop the d side. On this field, just because a side was blown did not mean there were not threats. However, we also know that if you are in that position, you will want to spread if possible. We positioned appropriately and made Heat fight too many fronts. 1-1.

The next point ultimately decided the outcome of the match. Both teams traded bodies early from key positions creating a 4 on 4. Heat established a center presence early but Mike Brown’s discipline on his job was outstanding. Unfortunately, MB got caught (hey, it happens) creating a 3 on 3 scenario. And this is where I feel the deciding factor took place in the match. Sam Monville’s patience can only be described as extraordinary. It’s almost as if he was wearing a Canes jersey. He became a part of that bunker. And, as was apt to happen on this field, we lost a body in the scramble and didn’t piece his position together. The guys would tell me later where they thought he was. The clock continued to dwindle. At one point, I got pretty excited because Sam did come off his post and went inside for a moment. When Nic did decide to go, I thought to myself, he knows and is going to stick Sam! He did not.This point I feel would be completely different if Nic traded or we knew where Sam was to begin with. Lesson learned (and discussed at length)

We were now forced to press into the guns with 1 minute left. We actually made our spots but our snake side attack looked into the first ball once there. The coup de gras was another minor, this one legit. A good chess match but penalties killed us. Two penalties and a loss by two. Coincidence? Probably not. But that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Britt Simpson would have pulled off a point stealing run if there would have been 2-3 more seconds on the clock in the final breakout. Heat wins 3-1.

Vs Baltimore Revo

We never played Revo in our rookie season last year. I always thought it would be an interesting match up of styles. We only had a chance to scout their match against AC Diesel, and even then it was while we were playing. Even with the limited data, we were able to extrapolate a rough conceptual idea. Then it was a matter of addressing that concept with our own approach. Like I said earlier, Revo is one of those teams that gets better as the event goes. Revo liked to get those guns up D side with a pocket shooter (I think they used Benny Carrol for this) so we thought on the first point, we should take advantage of that. Revo won some first engagement shots though and went up bodies early. They were quick to their secondaries too, much faster than in their first match (good adjustment). They made some good reads and upped the aggression. My guys quickly adjusted to slow things down and assess that first point but Revo found the hole. 0-1.

Next point we wanted to spread and see. We lost one on the break but we get one back due to an over eager Revo player. Coupled with the data we already had, this was really the point that gave me the insight we needed. They wanted to control the center. Zone control with over-watch gave us another kill. First engagement issues continued to plague us but we closed the point out. 1-1

The next point our play goes a little south as we lost two on the break but we evened it up almost immediately based off the hole Revo showed. Then Stuart Ridgel did some Stuart Ridgel stuff. This man is quickly becoming elite and if his dissection of that close out didn’t show it, I don’t know what else you have to do. 2-1

*Zen note – Just a personal opinion here and I am obviously biased but my thought is he should have got move of the prelims and the $500 cash. It is move of the prelims, not “scenario move” of the prelims. Nothing against Askren but if you don’t know to run your ass down the field with 10 seconds left to try and steal a point, your PB IQ is deficient. But if you can single handedly figure out how to do a 3 pack clean against Revo… that’s DOING something and shows a high in game processing speed.

I decided to get aggressive snake side and see Revo’s reaction. They reacted well but this allowed us to put an asset in position right behind our initial goal and create tension for the center, which is what Revo wants to control. But, best laid plans seldom survive first contact. We peeled one off but lost Nic. Stu played savior once again and traded. Even if he hadn’t, it’s a 2v2 and we were in position where we could burn the clock since we were up 1. However, it was not necessary as Stu did get his trade and we closed it out. 3-1

Still plenty of time on the clock. As the Hurricanes have proven several times this year, the clock is an integral part of the game. Knowing Revo wanted to get that extra gun up, we wanted to try pressing the issue again D side and it paid off. We got a kill on the break and established a heavy D presence off the rip. The beauty of this was, if/when my D side attacker makes it, now they HAD to contend with his presence and they could only do that from one of a few locations (based off their breakouts). If he wasn’t successful, I still felt confident we would kill off time. Couple that with Revo having to push, this would offer us opportunities to intercept them. The asset up front in conjunction with the spread created a win/win scenario. That successful D side run and the short snake presence allowed us to really stymie any aggression from Revo. Then the “Bash Brothers” pull one of their patented “make coach pee himself a little” moves… but it actually ended up working out. Revo doesn’t see Drew join Britt in his bunker. Britt’s gun was inside making Revo think, okay, there he is, and allows Drew to peel two off. 4-1

Revo called a timeout since they only had 3-4 minutes to score 3 points and/or reduce the point spread. There was a small misunderstanding on the box for the Canes. Yes, we had a conversation about it in the pit afterwards but as a coach, you certainly don’t want to let your team dwell on something like that. Especially since I felt I was accountable for not being more clear and concise in my explanation of what I wanted. Move on, next point. Revo did a good job and took advantage to get the point with just over 2 minutes left on the clock. 4-2.

In the final point of the match, we wanted to contest them with a center presence and take the corners in case it didn’t work out. We shot two on the break but they eliminated our center presence. At that point I knew it was in the bag because of positioning. My guys don’t have to engage but can control a zone. A Revo player tried to get creative D side, it didn’t pay off, leaving the two remaining Revo players with a heavy lift of pushing into 3 disciplined Hurricane guns. A trade happened snake side leaving it a 2 on 1, Hurricane’s favor. Pate re-positions to snake corner and Johnny’s your uncle. Canes win 4-2.

One and one for the day. Both our matches were afternoon (2 and 4pm). The next day though we were looking at an 11:20 am match followed by a 4 pm match. That is a LOT of downtime. So we got together for a team meeting, did our homework on Diesel and Ironmen, and then developed our logistics for the next day. We also knew we would have an opportunity to scout the Ironmen one more time. With our plans set, we went to sleep feeling rather confident.

VS AC Diesel

I felt like Mark had respect for us and would not be flippant about our match. We anticipated a slow grind. We wanted to set the pace and drag them into the deep end of the pool with our style of play. We had a good understanding of the field and we wanted to leverage that. But we also felt like they would adjust. It is always a crap shoot day 2 on what your first opponent on day two will present. First point, we got our guns up, got 5 out alive in an effort to assess and counter. As expected, when Diesel saw an opportunity they capitalized. We lost some gun fights but now we were smarter for it. For this particular field, you didn’t necessarily have to engage. We decided to spread and assess again. Small hiccup to begin with but it pays off. Tie ball game. 1-1

We knew there was a statistical probability they were going to spread the next point, it was just a matter of who we were going to pick on off the break. The paint shot straight and true and we found ourselves with a 4 on 2 advantage pretty quick. Knowing we had the higher probability of going up a point while burning clock, Diesel smartly conceded the point to get 5 fresh back out there. And why wouldn’t you? On paper, you had to think to yourself, “AC’s best 5 versus the Canes best 5, AC wins the majority of the time.” But people said that all last year to us. We would just smile and think, keep telling yourself that, it’s eventually going to bite you in the ass, develop lockjaw, and drag you to death. 2-1 Canes

Again, we determine Diesel wanted to stack that snake side. We decided to spread the field with a free wheeler. Their stack would determine where our free wheeler would become a force multiplier. Sure enough, Diesel conceded the d-side, content to hold and stacked the snake side. We contained d side essentially with one gun (a risk but based off 2 days of playing and watching the layout, it seemed worth it). Once the widest D side fell, it forced their home to plug the hole and turn a gun from snake side to contend. Thing is, we weren’t in a hurry. We had the advantage and we were going to make them work for it at this point. And our free wheeler never had to really commit to anything. My guys won some good gun fights too. 3-1

It was obvious now, even with the time left, they would now try to get out D side. Nico was out there so we were confident in the call. We put two guns on it and it paid off. Interesting fact, I am pretty sure we shot that player in the D side can 2-3 different times but the ref could never find the hit. The guys didn’t get rattled though, maintained composure and let that clock roll while nullifying any potential counter push. Spicka tried a desperation move up the center. No go. I was hoping Greg Pauley would let it go a little longer but he is too smart for that. 4-1.

Up by 3, there was still a lot of time on that clock. And with the roster we were facing, you couldn’t count them out. So we had to be smart. We were in X-ball and felt confident in the game plan. But again, that’s where things can get sideways sometimes. And this would be one of those times. We knew they would be aggressive off the break to an extent. We decided to shoot wide and set up to contain. We lost one of our containment shooters on the break though which allowed them to get two bodies to join their center push from the break. We made a valiant counter but not quite enough. 4-2

We had to ask ourselves an important question, would it be best to get 5 bodies out alive and concede ground or fight fire with fire? We chose fire. We make our goal for the point by getting wide and far d side which should slow any progress through center/snake. But we lost Pate on the break from a key spot for the game plan. This made Stu have to come off his assignment and get snake way to help Nic. Either way, once we were set, I felt we were really in position to dictate the point. The break down happened when our D side presence comes off his assignment (he was asked to check something and he trusts his teammate). Once that happened, it allowed two Diesel players to reposition. We actually bounced the one who shifted out to the dorito… it’s a different point I feel if that ball broke (woulda coulda shoulda). We picked up A-rod’s move to get wider on D side. But Britt had to get small at first and was forced to re-engage Mark Johnson in the center. Mark got a ball on him which opened the hole. They got lucky again when Nic bounces Mouse at the snake 50. How lucky? With Mouse’s second life, he peeled off Drew Bell creating a 2 on 1. Mark closed the point out with about 50 seconds left. 4-3

Now they had to come. What would a team’s best access points be down the field? If you aren’t practicing 60 second points, you’re doing it wrong. We knew what we would do in that situation so we prepared to repel it. We made positions 5 alive and once that happened, I knew we were solid with the win. We shot one on the break which helped as well. I preach discipline to the point of nausea. If they were able to get through a line who only had one job, I would be impressed. We hold on with 5 alive and they lost everyone. 4-3

What I didn’t tell my guys was how, inside, I was a little disappointed we had tossed that spread away from a seeding perspective. Would have been nice to have a plus 6 at the end of the day… that’s called “foreshadowing”.

VS Ironmen

My guys were focused during the downtime , staying hydrated, getting some food, keeping out of the sun, and watching some games. We had to beat the Ironmen. We had watched Heat send Diesel home earlier that afternoon. If the Ironmen beat us, they would take the heads up and go on to Sunday. We had data on them but they were kind of everywhere. There were holes in their game but they were random and difficult to pinpoint. We felt that we had better comms and discipline though and decided to leverage that. We tried a goal oriented play D side first point. Interestingly enough, they ran an almost identical play. The only difference being we took advantage first. They did appear to have had two of their players doing the same job though. What didn’t help was my friend on the Ironmen, Mike McGowan, slips a shot in on Britt and in an effort to fill the spot before the men can react Drew Bell quite literally pulls a Goldberg from WWE and speared Britt on his way into Britt’s former bunker! This caused Drew to get shot. So now our D side presence was blown. Ridgel pulled the “get the hell out of dodge” card but gets it declined at check out while Nic decided, hey, we got nothing to lose – full send! Point one to Ironmen. 0-1.

After a short discussion about a PB show from a few years ago called “The Short Bus”, I got my guys refocused on the task at hand. We understood where the domino fell and went back to basics. We would spread and make the appropriate reads/counter based off the Ironmen. Low and behold, we have the same idea again as both teams spread but the Ironmen struck first shooting our wide D side. However, Ironmen dropped a zone and we got back out wide to contest as well as get an asset in place to support. At the same time, we took just enough ground snake side to keep their D side wary. It seemed as if the Men forgot the shadows get long at this time of day (as a team we had discussed using this). Aaron Pate did use that to make a counter digging out a kill from the center. Then it appeared the Ironman in the snake side brick panicked a little and tried a desperation run through to dig out Pate. But over-watch by Drew Bell snuffed that idea out. Head on a swivel, Pate took up zone control and caught another Ironman over extending. We were now in a 4 on 3 body advantage and were in position to counter push which we did. A mistake by the last Ironmen player got them a major. This not only tied us up but put us on the power play next point with a two body advantage. 1-1.

I knew the moment they lost the first body Shane and Pax would concede the point giving us the 2-1 lead with 4-5 minutes left. So I told my guys to go out, make the primaries we have identified and make the point last. We actually shot their D side runner on the break (damn it!) but the concession didn’t come. Or so I thought as it did about 10 seconds later. I got that they were hoping we would get into a feeding frenzy and run down to our deaths or draw a penalty. When it became apparent we weren’t going anywhere, they conceded. 2-1.

With just over 5 minutes on the clock and Shane/Pax at the wheel, I found myself honestly a little stumped. I decided to take a little ground snake side and put my other guys in position to contain and counter easily. Sure enough, the Men took snake brick, the center wedge, and the d side wedge. I watched the Ironmen player wrap inside the snake brick and launch to our center/snake wedge. As he did this, I saw a hit come off his shoulder. I don’t know if it was one my guys or one of his own. But what I saw did, in fact happen, since a ref ran in and a flag went up. This left the Ironmen with one body up the center and two across the back line. My guys now understood we are up 5 bodies to 3 with a 1 point advantage. We don’t have to force the issue but allowed the Men to kill themselves as the clock dwindled down. The Center brick got crafty but his shadow gave him away. He made the mistake of popping the top and got eliminated. The remaining two Ironmen were still in the back. With the body advantage and the lead, Shane/Pax conceded the point leaving about 2 and half minutes in the match. 3-1.

With just over 2 minutes left, we knew if we could get wide, we should be able to seal the deal. We got out 5 alive and I looked at everyone in the pit and said, “Game”. We had a single snake side gun controlling the snake side entrance and an Ironmen ran into it. Their home decided to spread wide going behind the first D side can to the d side corner. He and his teammate in the inset D side can both get eliminated. This left snake side wedge and the snake side “block”. Wedge (Gomez maybe?) moved to snake side brick. So, not only are they down bodies but essentially linear. Turns out that snake side block was Al Fernandez and he moved to snake side wedge. No longer linear but still not optimum (what can you do though?). We shot Gomez and then Al. With the heads up play, Nic Ripple rushed in for the point to help with margin.

Vs Los Angeles Infamous

We went home and did our homework. We had set the goal to make Sunday for this event. Now that we were there, the next goal was to win our first match. We had made Sunday twice last season but lost our first match each time. We were determined not to let that happen again. The more I looked at Infamous’ tape, it was obvious they were highly aggressive on this layout, taking ground early and with speed. And why not when you have that type of speed. But after further study, it became apparent their approach essentially consisted of wanting to use the two center bricks to cross up defensively and let their other three “play around” in the back. Remember at the beginning of this, I said their were two ways to play the field? Yeah, they were most definitely the first approach. So we decided to take Lao Tzu’s approach to this match. “An army that cannot yield will be defeated. A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind. The hard and stiff will be broken; the soft and supple will prevail.” We decided to concede that positioning since it appeared the way they played was to simply take away the head of the snake and the dorito 2-3 gap. Okay… we won’t go there. We will set traps since you are basically taking two of your guns out of the fight leaving us 5 guns to pick on the 3 behind them.

I know what you are thinking. Boring! Yes, you are absolutely right. But our goal was to win. If I see something we can exploit, a win is a win. Say what you want about that match but it was a controlled chess match. The guys executed perfectly. And we had the pieces on the board standing at the end of it.

We knew our basic set up was a good way to control the Infamous approach. And we knew EXACTLY what Infamous would do (scouting and statistical analysis for the win). So that’s what we did. Sure enough, Infamous came out hard straight to the snake 50 brick. They also positioned the center/d side wedge player who would want to go inside to the center 50 brick. The easiest to isolate was the wedge and he was the first to die. We then spread because, with that wedge eliminated, the snake side brick can’t stop the counter very well. The risk was worth it. We let them spread D side too though. Because we knew that snake side brick wanted to control the 2-3 dorito gap, we snuck into the dorito side to keep their dorito player honest and ensure that Snake side brick STAYED that way allowing us access to him. Stuart made the read, saw the opportunity and got the elimination. If that hadn’t worked, the goal was set to get another gun out behind our first dorito and bully the crossed snake side gun (there was a bounce shot). Their dorito presence somewhat stifled that though. Stu then carefully set another trap with a tactical retreat (we had worked this a few times at practice to good success). Regrettably, Stu misses the opportunity as Infamous got crafty D side and dug one of our dorito side attackers out. Opportunity missed, Stu tries to get clever by resetting to our secondary plan…but just a little too much as Brusselback wrapped on his blocked out creeping (he showed just a smidge and Tim got the shot). But in order to get that shot on Stu, Tim exposed himself and gets eliminated as well.

What took place next is textbook. We didn’t have to worry about margin. A win was a win at this point. So we took our time piecing things together with our snake corner staying in reserve if necessary. Infamous had both corners. We owned the snake, the snake corner, and Dorito 4. Pate became aggressive because he was out of paint. I’m pretty sure all 5 remaining players were anemic on paint as the shooting was quite sporadic. Comment of the event though was the question posed by Nic to Pate. “Pate, do you want me to get in the snake now?” In typical Pate fashion, he responded with, “Hell yes I do”. This is because Nic was no longer needed for reserve and we could now press the advantage. Mike Brown’s presence was a thorn so Infamous smartly tries to progress down the D side but Nic had begun crawling forward and had the infamous player’s side. Nic scalped him. This happened at almost 10 minutes in! This created a 3 on 1 Canes advantage and Travis was quick to towel. 1-0

We knew this is when Infamous would send Sam and Zack to the two center bricks. Were the rolls reversed, this would have been the play. It was time to implement and execute our pre-planned response. I gave the audible from the pit to the box when I saw Sam and Zack line up (we had a call ready for this). They went right where we called it. Their two center players shot a lot of paint at gaps that no one was going to go through. And because we knew to control the wides behind them, they couldn’t really generate an attack. It also allowed our back center to play tall, pick shots and see the field. He shot their snake side tower followed by the dorito corner. Three Infamous players now had to push into 5 zoned guns and they got chopped up. We actually had the time to hit the buzzer but it wasn’t necessary. We wanted to be respectful.

Milestone and goal #2 reached.

Vs New York Xtreme

Similar to Infamous, Xtreme really played the layout aggressively and fast. Yyou had to respect it because it appeared they were doing it with significant success. They really worked in the off season and it showed. It was like a whole new team out there. But we had scouted them and felt we had the right game plan to beat them.

And our game plan looked solid the first point in. 1-0

That second point was a friggin bloodbath of a knife fight but Nic Ripple said not today satan. 2-0

Nothing is ever in the bag, especially with this layout, with that much time left, against a Sunday quarters pro team.

The third point we know they will go center brick with the route through the center. I put Drew bell off the right hand side of the home to shoot that lane. Xtreme shot our dorito corner runner but we definitely shot their center brick runner. Our entire pit saw it happen. Ref runs in and calls it rub… jeez. Okay. Fine. We tied the body count up by shooting Cantor. About 3 mnutes went by and we ended up losing our dorito side can when Corey Hall and Drew trade. But Xtreme has Cantor in our 40. He could have closed it out sooner as our center line was exposed (I was chewing gum vigorously hoping he wouldn’t think of or see the line). Around 4 minutes left, Cantor and Caro figured it out. Both Pate and Camp got peeled quickly followed by Nic. They hit the buzzer with 3:45 left. 2-1

NYX’s guns were solid on the next point as we lost two on the break. We took Pat Kraft out of the center too. But Xtreme capitalized on the kills by quickly and efficiently taking ground. My boys held tough and Drew Bell took 2 of them with him. We both decided to wait the clock out and let the overtime point decide it. 2-2.

I felt confident we were going to take this match. The play call was good, we were set up for success. Lot to dissect on what happened that overtime point… but not today. This is long enough as it is.

Congratulations to NYX making top 4! A tremendous amount of growth. Mad respect to that crew. And of course, congrats to Dynasty.

I have this theory that I was told sometime ago. It is called the ratio of thirds. It’s for when you are chasing a goal or doing anything difficult or hard:

A third of the time you’re going to feel absolutely great… on top of the world, all is going well, you are seeing what you want and need to see.
A third of the time you’re going to feel “okay”… not great, not bad, its not a bad spot or a good spot, you’re just kinda there.
And then, a third of the time you’re going to feel like crap. Nothing is going right, you’re frustrated, you aren’t seeing or feeling or hearing what you need.

It’s a cycle and it repeats… sometimes. But I would argue that, if you maintain this ratio, you’re actually doing pretty well.

You might think the Canes are feeling “okay” about this event or maybe even “crappy”. But you would be wrong. We feel great. We finished last season in 11th place and a 3rd tier team after working our way up from 5th tier. We made Sunday this first event and met another milestone by winning our wild card match on Sunday morning. Lots to be happy with. We know there is more work to do but we look forward to it. We are up for the challenge and can’t wait for the next test. See you in Texas.

Be water my friends.

NXL World Cup 2022 Recap

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

When Hurricane Nicole showed up the evening before World Cup, the NXL was forced to make some tough decisions. One of, if not the largest Cup to date, they had to figure a way to get 560 teams scheduled into 3 days as opposed to the original 4 day plan. One way they did this was to reduce the amount of prelim games for the pro division and, in the interest of fairness, redraw the brackets. The New Orleans Hurricanes kept Tsunami and NYX from our previous bracket, but replaced LVL and NRG with San Antonio X-Factor. We would have 3 chances to get it right…no wild card for this event. Win a minimum of two or go home (unless you are Russian Legion – wild how that bracket shook out).

We only had one match on Friday and it was against the new comers from Columbia, South America, Tsunami. We had no real data on them save they had beat 4 other teams to get this spot at Cup. Most south American teams I have come across are highly aggressive and like to play the attack forward game. Tsunami was different. When I saw these gentlemen prior to our match, they seemed mature and athletic. I could see why they won the coveted spot. They seemed to understand how the field played but were a little off on their zone control. Processing speed was there at moments but not near consistent enough to be competitive at this level. Good group of guys though.

We wanted to show pocket and not much else in this match if we could. And for the most part, that’s what we did. Pretty much the same play 7 of the 8 points we played. We won by mercy rule 7-1 but I couldn’t help but notice a few issues during this match. The one point we lost was a 5 on 4 power play because we were forcing some issues instead of letting them develop. And we were a little off on a few other smaller things… I commented this publicly on social media after I had a talk with the guys. It was these issues that would come back and haunt us on day two.

Saturday rolled around and our first match was against New York Xtreme. We have gotten the better of them each time we met this year. We have beaten them by 3 each time. We won the first time we met at the Lonestar Open 7-4. We would beat them again in Philly 5-2. However, we knew they would be hungry, especially since they could very well be relegated if they didn’t show up. That can be a powerful motivator. We understood they had scrimmaged some of the best teams in the league prior to this event so we knew they would be well prepared. We scouted their first match against X-factor. Not a lot of data to extrapolate from just a 4 point match but enough to determine they were playing “different” and seemed to have a good grasp on how to play the field. Someone told me that Rich Telford stated they knew how we would play the field from our first match against Tsunami… And that’s what we had hoped they would think. Mission Accomplished, or so we thought.

As expected, it was a knife fight. Unfortunately, we would not live up to nor meet our own required expectations. That falls squarely on us. There are points in there where you see Hurricane paintball. Steady, disciplined, well executed grinds. The points we lost? Uncommon individual mistakes that created holes that allowed NYX to capitalize. A good example would be the 5th point of the match. Mistakes were made. And that happens. We will grow from it. However, as the Coach, I take full responsibility as I should have prepared my guys better. I also share in the accountability of the last point before overtime. The call wasn’t bad and it wasn’t necessarily wrong (the set up) but I could have changed one asset that may have saved that point more than likely. I almost called a time out to run on the field and change it so that is completely on me. NYX were due one. Congrats to them on a match well played.

We had now put ourselves in a do or die situation against an elite team in X-Factor. X-factor was showing a slow and steady pocket press approach to the layout, very similar to our own. They were just doing it with uncanny discipline, composure, and communication. Something one would expect from the talent on that team. We knew it was going to be a steep hill to climb. You can’t help but respect the members of X-factor. Those cats are no joke and play a composed game. We decided to take an offensive approach to them. It did not work. The way the field played, at least in my opinion, was you establish your center presence, try to turn guns inside, create opportunity (and sometimes chaos), then spread and bully a gun. X-factor simply beat us to that approach almost every point. Of course, getting a major our first point didn’t help set a good pace. However, the second point we showed why we are here. That being said, X-Factor’s guns on the break were just dialed in and we were playing in a deficit most of the points. Hard place to fight from when your tournament life is on the line. The 5th point saw a great counter by my guys but a minor penalty stole it from us putting us in an even worse position. Drew Bell has a big boy point but too little too late. Not that it matters, but I felt Daniel Camp clearly shot Billy first in the final point exchange. Billy continues and puts a ball on Daniel. Should have been a major putting us in a 4-3 score/position with a minute left. Didn’t get the call, it happens, 5-2 X-factor. They played an excellent match.

And with that, our rookie season came to an end. Not how we wanted it to go obviously but it is what it is. We now have next year to focus on. We have to take the many lessons learned and use them to make ourselves better.

But first, a few first season take-a ways/thoughts…

Our goals heading into the season were simple. Win a point, win/connect two points in a row, win a match, and don’t get last at any event. We accomplished all of these goals at each event. There was another goal we had set at the beginning of the year. Be in the top 15 for the series. However, I personally set a goal for the team which was to be top 10 for the series. Headed into cup at 9th was a good place to be. However, at the time of this writing, they haven’t posted series points/scores yet. I don’t believe we will meet my personal goal of top 10 but it will be close (my guess is 11th). I know we
easily met our top 15 goal as we never finished worse than 14th all season.

We were pretty much written off at the beginning of the season and not without merit. We were unproven among the pro ranks, no one knew any of us, or our potential. History would dictate that we get knocked around. But we weren’t going to let that happen. You were at least going to know you were in fight. I tried to explain that in interviews to whoever would listen. We made two Sundays… I believe we could have made 3 and probably should have made 4 but that is on us. It is ALWAYS on us. I don’t care what the other team did. One solid take away is I believe we are the first rookie pro team to go undefeated in prelims and enter Sunday as the 1st place seed (Chicago/Windy City). With Legion and Heat in our bracket for that matter. Not a bad accomplishment even if I do say so myself. I want the guys to know they are capable of much more. But we have to prove it, we have to show it. It will require more hard work, more time, more repetition, and a lot of study.

We won 86 of 170 points played meaning we won 51% of the time we stepped out on the field. That will have to improve if we want to remain relevant. We placed 14th, 6th, 13th, 5th, and I believe 14th. You could argue there is a small component of consistency in there worthy of notice… But again, I think we are capable of much better.

There are 5 memories from our rookie year that will stay with me during the off season… perhaps I should call them lessons. Either way, I will study them one last time, and move on with my new knowledge.

  • The Impact game at Sunshine State Open
  • The Heat game at Lonestar
  • The Thunder match in Philly
  • The Heat match on Sunday in Chicago
  • And of course, this last NYX match at Cup

All lessons learned and all will simply make us better in one way or another.

Real quick, a little analysis/comparison.

Since its most recent inception, the NXL has seen 8 teams make the jump from Div 1/Semi Pro to the Professional ranks. Seattle Uprising would make the jump in 2016 placing 13th out of 16 pro teams at the time, never making Sunday. In 2017, after winning the semi pro division, PC Katana would place 14th out of 16 pro teams never making a Sunday. In 2018, the NXL would grow the pro divsion from 16 teams to 20 teams. The four new teams would be Sacramento DMG, New York Xtreme, Scottsdale Elevation, and MLKings. DMG would make their first Sunday at World Cup taking 9th at the event and placing 11th overall for the season. Xtreme would take 12th that season making two Sundays but having such low appearances in the other events, it drug them down. Elevation with an incredible debut performance would falter and take 14th followed by MLKings at 19th.

2019 saw the addition of San Diego Aftermath after Chicago Aftershock was relegated. After an absolutely stunning debut at the first event, Aftermath wouldn’t win another match the rest of the season taking 15th for the year.

2020 (the covid year) would see the departure of 3 pro teams; Scottsdale Elevation, PC Katana, and Boom. AC Diesel had won the Semi Pro division thus earning their pro spot. I believe members of Boom would merge with 12th place semi pro team NRG Elite taking a spot and finally, Columbus LVL, the 4th place semi pro team would buy PC Katana’s spot. With the 2 event season, AC would shock the world with a 5th place finish at Cup giving them an 8th place overall. LVL and NRG would finish 14th and 16th. The following season, with no relegation due to the short season, we would see AC take 10th, NRG 13th, and LVL 15th. Interestingly enough, the Hurricanes won the Semi Pro division during the covid season with a World Cup win.

I mention all of this only because I am a bit of a history buff. That, and I wanted to see where we stood in regards to the annals of PB history. With our 11th place series finish, we fall in with the two most successful rookie debuts in paintball history. We tie DMG with the 11th place finish. Do you count the AC rookie 2 event season and their 8th place finish? I guess we could average those 2 events from 2020 and add the next 2 or 3 finishes to give them a season. They would have had an 11th, 5th, 6th, 11th, and 14th. Almost sure to have been a top 10 team (and they did pull a top 10 finish their sophomore year). So I feel AC Diesel keeps the title of most successful Rookie pro team with DMG and the Hurricanes sharing the 2nd place spot. Although I guess you could argue with our Chicago event (undefeated and 1st seed headed into Sunday) and the two Sunday appearances, we would edge DMG out for that 2nd place… just pontificating…

Congratulations to the original boys in blue, San Diego Dynasty. Absolutely incredible performance all season long. Well earned and well deserved. And to all the other coaches and players in this division – I don’t know many of you but I know a little something about you… we all love this game and in order to grind at this level, you have at least one trait I like – perseverance. I look forward to learning from all of you in one way or another.

There are so many people we need to thank…

First and foremost I want to thank our fans. You guys are 100% legitimately the best fans in the sport. Respectful, kind and generous. Don’t think we didn’t hear you at Cup! We did (and so did the rest of Osceola county)! It means the world to us. Thank you and God bless you. We will continue to give and do our best for you! We draw strength from you!

To our families – words won’t and can’t do justice to what we owe you for your continued support and belief. From Parents, Wives, Aunts and Uncles, Siblings, Children, Family, friends and Girlfriends, we are simply blessed to have you. Allowing and supporting this dream of ours with your own sacrifice is nothing short of inspirational. You mean the world to us because you are our world. The Hurricane family is large and powerful and it is one of our greatest attributes as a team.

To our sponsors – I know we are the new kids on the block but we appreciate your thoughtfulness and professionalism. GI, the paint was stellar all season long. Planet Eclipse, no one doubts you have the best marker in the business (and your techs are johnny on the spot man!). Carbon, your support and service has been nothing short of extraordinary just like your products. JT, the masks are classic and we received nothing but compliments on how good we looked in our swag. Virtue, the hoppers were durable and never once the whole season ever let us down. Finally, to Drew Bankston and LA Xtreme Paintball, our home field in Slidell, LA… You. Are. The. Man. Love you brother!
Thank you all!

Until next season.

Be water my friends…

2022 NXL Windy City Major Recap

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

Remember when you were much younger and you were asked to do something by a parent or an authority figure and did it well? Or maybe you showed responsibility/initiative, and did your job/chores without being asked? Most of us were “rewarded”, right?  Or maybe you just wouldn’t get your butt handed to you. Either way, you were basically being taught that, if you did your job and did it well, you would see some sort of return.

Chicago was a little like that.

We know we need to perform well each and every event. I’m a firm believer in that success in this sport is not all predicated on talent as much as it is about team trust, cohesion, culture, reliability, and consistency, topped with necessary improvement. If a team has no ego and understands what it needs to do to improve, they will improve. And improvement will lead to reaching goals. And with each goal reached, you will eventually get to the point where you are winning.

We were not happy with our performance in Philly. We knew Chicago was going to be a make-or-break event for us.

As usual, we would face some difficulties, but then, who doesn’t?  We would head to this event without Mike Brown, who had life events to address. Justin Bailey would also have a life event that would keep him from being with the team the first layout weekend. Aaron Pate would injure himself during the second practice.  We would face bad weather the second layout weekend and I couldn’t nab a pro team to scrimmage either weekend.  Luckily, our good friends on Austin Notorious (ranked 3rd in Semi-Pro) came through and not only gave us some excellent looks but really opened our eyes to some aspects of our game!  (They took 2nd in Chicago!  Proud and happy for them. Ryan Gray is leading those boys incredibly well).

New Orleans Hurricanes and Austin Notorious at LA Xtreme Paintball in Slidell, LA

Coming into this event, I felt confident our approach to the layout would not only work but was, for all intents and purposes, the right way to play the field (at least for the Canes).  However, my resolve would be tested early Friday morning.  We drew the dreaded afternoon bracket (I prefer morning games) but the one advantage is, you get to see how teams are playing the field.  It seemed in those first few sets everyone was pushing the snake… hard. We pushed the snake too but not nearly like everyone else. I was genuinely surprised since, during our practices, our kill ratio for that runner was a high percentage. I thought surely everyone else was having a similar experience and would weigh it. That being said, we decided to stick with the game plan.

Our approach to the field is what military personnel would call a “flying wedge”. If you aren’t familiar with the term, it was a formation used in early warfare, usually with cavalry against infantry.  Imagine cavalry in the formation of a giant triangle charging at your squared formation of infantry (phalanx).  The concept was to penetrate the ranks and split the opposing force.  Now imagine the flying wedge cavalry with mortar fire…  In the case of the Canes, I trust my guys’ guns.  We drill our on the break shots religiously. So, that was the idea. We wanted to establish up the center, turn the opponents’ guns inside, make them contend with us there, then expand outside, bully a single gun, and then take more ground.  But it would require discipline, communication, and solid guns with a good eye for the read.  Simple, right?

ZEN NOTE – to those of you (and there were several) who sent me questions asking why we didn’t attack the snake more often… we did.  And we didn’t.  Calls were made based off statistical analysis and probability of what the opponent was showing as well as our assets.  We had contingencies for when our opponent made the snake as “safety valves”.  They worked.

Out of all the layouts this year, I felt this was one was ours.  A “hybrid” traditional that would allow us to really leverage all our weapons. And for the most part, I was right.  But this would be no walk in the park.  We would be tested right out of the gate.  People keep telling me we won’t be taken seriously until we start beating the elite teams.  Myself and the Canes agree. Well… here was our chance.


VS Heat

I have been accused of not being the brightest guy at times but I’m no dummy.  I knew if we let Chad George take a breath anywhere near that snake, no matter our contingencies, we would have problems.  But I looked over at my man Aaron Smith and I think to myself…  when we shoot George and get Aaron in there… Johnny’s your uncle.  We keyed up on ole George early. But they keyed up on Aaron Smith too. Aaron is a warrior and understood he had one of the toughest spots to play this event. I am really pleased with his growth as a player. Keep an eye on this one.

Obviously running anywhere past the snake can on this field was a risk versus reward scenario.  So, we pushed it on point one to test guns.  Aaron doesn’t make it, George does.  But Stuart Ridgel does the patented “Stu Shuffle” and takes ole George off the board.  However, we lost some gunfights. Point to Heat.  Next point more of the same.  We went snake corner, their guns were good there too. It was at this point I realized they are playing the field similar to us.  And we always train how to beat our own game plans.  They were up 2-0.  They were going to dig in on this field, roll their guns, and let us try and kill ourselves.  We had other plans.  Small bumps with tiny edges. Bully a gun.  Push. And use a guy named Jacob Searight.

We finally shot George.  But we allowed our tandem line to get too long on D side.  Dizon did us a favor though and drew the major.  The game was tied and we were on the power play as Heat would be playing down.  We figured they would take one of the towers early (probably snake side) and shoot for it.  It payed off (happened to be George). 3-2 us when they conceded the point.

The next break was a blood bath.  We shot two and they shot two. Then Tyler Harmon had a Tyler Harmon moment. Tied again at 3-3.  Next point of what would be the end of regulation, both teams did the exact same breakout.  However, Heat established the center first.  This concerned me because they were in position to push in the last 60.  We traded punches, guys held and time expired.

Headed into overtime, we were feeling pretty good.  If it bleeds, we can kill it, and that was our thought headed into that last point.  The pressure was on them so we knew they would go pocket thinking if they can get 5 out alive, they win “on paper” as Matty would say.  But we haven’t read that book yet (heck, we can’t even read).  We decided to push Britt Simpson D side with heavy guns and it paid off.  We got out wide snake side as the point developed after establishing a strong center.  Aaron Pate made a wicked snap on Tyler Harmon, then smoked Ryan Smith and then Ronnie Dizon gets eaten.   Good win for what we had dubbed prior to the event, the revenge tour.

*ZEN NOTE – In the last point, I recall Federov making a gesture after shooting Stu (a kiss goodbye or something) and then I made the same gesture when we hit the buzzer.  I know… juvenile. Just because someone is disrespectful doesn’t mean I will be. I have to be a better example for my guys. 

VS Thunder

We had watched Thunder (when we could) play Uprising and noticed some tendencies. But I did not depend on the scouting as I knew they would adjust their game plan.  The key was going to be identifying the adjustment early… which we did.  It was a back and forth match.  I was particularly proud of my man Britt Simpson in this match as he earned himself a one on one coin in the 2nd point of the match to put us on the board. Three Hurricanes carry those coins now.

A good example of game planning from both teams was the 4th point of the match.  We missed our snake shot (it was going to happen) but we got our inside support kill and took big ground D side.  With snake hot, we went to our contingency plan, and it worked.  But Thunder was a scrappy team and there was still a lot of time on the clock.  For the 5th point, we shot their snake side runner again, but they made a good read, took ground, and established early in center and on D side (something we had been doing).  It paid off for them as they dropped Drew Bell early and picked up our counter through center.  But I felt they had just shown us their best effort.  Next point, we wanted to key up on the wides and the boys did a great job sweet spotting BOTH.  This is a good example of “permeating” the point, something we had discussed as a team.  With the amount of time left in the match, we didn’t have to be in a hurry, especially since we shot 2 and lost 1.  We were also in good field position compared to Thunder.  My guy’s maintained zone control, had a conversation on who has the ball and where we needed to punch.  We burned off just under 3 minutes here.  But then we got a little sloppy, let Thunder spread, and lost two gunfights we shouldn’t have.  Luckily, Thunder did us a favor and drew the red towards the end.  (Aaron Pate shot their center player who continued to shoot).

The next point was another bloodbath break for both teams.  Unfortunately, Thunder got the best of it with that late fill to the snake from home.  We had lost Stu who would have protected against that move.  Britt recognized that, with Stu gone, plan B was to flip the field and got on his horse D side.  But it wasn’t enough as Thunder’s player,I think it was Pat Gleason, got himself two and a buzzer.

It was now 4-3 in our favor with 4 minutes left.

*ZEN NOTE -I heard there was a comment made that we went defensive. That is inaccurate. The intent was not defense but to set up a push. The setup, much like snake on the break, has its risks and has to develop. This sometimes creates an issue getting offensive when you lose key components of the set up. Running into a zoned gun on purpose isn’t offense. It’s stupid.

Thunder made the snake corner on the next break. This was a good call but that also meant his support must come from one of 2 places.  We shot one of them.  The snake fill by Thunder was what slowed this point down.  We had the body advantage, but we had to leverage two of our own to contain snake.  Both Stu and Daniel knew the deal and adjusted accordingly.  Searight understood his role in this as well and pushed D side.  Pate saw the opportunity to reposition to support Searight.  Gleason got clever and took my Rook (Searight).  He got clever again and took Stu who had just positioned on 50 snake.  However, Aaron Pate dashed his dreams decisively.  Daniel Camp smoked the press from center leaving it a 2 on 1,  Pate and Daniel vs Thunder’s snake player.  At this point, I turned and began congratulating my guys in the pit for the good first day. Nothing against the Thunder player, I just knew the statistical outcome of that one with those two gunfighters in.

I would have liked that last point though…

VS Uprising

There was no doubt the other boys from Seattle had an axe to grind after our first meeting (and our first pro match ever) in Kissimmee.  They were showing a highly aggressive approach to the field, but we also noticed some tendencies that we could exploit.  The question was, again, what if any adjustment did they make?  We soon found out that, they didn’t really. 

The first point was gruesome.  There were so many yellow birds in the air… but Daniel Camp finally gave the Canes our first point win (something we struggled with this weekend was coming out strong and winning the first point each match) and gained his THIRD one on one coin.

More solid guns on the break next point. We shot 3.  The following point, we shot the snake again but lost Pate early.  Uprising beat us to the center but this was where their tendencies showed (no I will not share what they are…my secret).  My guys recognized it and acted accordingly making it 3-0.

The 4th point Uprising got the advantage early again.  We tried to take ground early D side but they caught us and we miss our shots.  We recognized the tendencies again but aren’t able to capitalize.  Justin Bailey did an excellent job of killing the clock in a 3 on 1, a minute twenty .  3-1 with just over 7 minutes left.

We decided to give Uprising a different look the next point.  I almost didn’t do it because of an injury Pate was nursing. But the guys are all warriors, and he told me he was fine and could do it.  I went with the gut and it paid off.  We knew Uprising would push center but with our new snake side presence, I knew it would cause them to swivel.  And they did.  Searight took advantage and got onto their side of the field… again.  But, again we let that tandem line get too long.  We had to settle for a trade.  But, Uprising’s tendency reared, we took advantage and Stu finished with a 3 pack.

The next point was a bit sloppy on our part.  Stu looked into a ball and Aaron Smith made the mistake of asking for a paint-check.  Minor on us.

We lost Stu early on the next point but take 3 of Uprising on the break with the help of a minor (it was on their dorito player).  Uprising conceded the point leaving approximately 3 minutes on the board down by 3.

We shot one on the break but lost Pate early again.  Though, once Searight got wide and Stu established in the center, it was simply a matter of time… literally. We knew if we won the point they would let time expire in an effort to maintain point margin.  Funny note and I don’t know if they show this on the webcast but as the guys are standing around watching the clock go down, Searight decided to shoot Stu in the foot… on purpose… But the joke was on Searight as I think the ref called Stu clean LOL

VS Red Legion

Goodness gracious.  The revenge tour almost came to a screeching halt with this one.  But the guys showed composure, discipline, belief, and a whole lot of grit. If there was ever a match to define the New Orleans Hurricanes, this would be it. We never quit.

I can sum this one up rather quickly.  The first point we just lost gun fights.  The next three points of this match, the Russians essentially took our game planning and just did it better than us.  That and we got penalties and they didn’t.  We were also trying one or two things differently since we had already made Sunday.  That whole plan went out the window quick though as things were getting out of hand.  This was the most penalized I think we have been in a match.  I told my guys, back to basics. The game plan was solid, the Legion was simply beating us to the punch.  If we quit getting penalties, we will win this match! That, and our guns on break had taken a dip for some reason.  Down 4 to 0 now but there was a BUNCH of time left in the match.  They went up 4-0 on us in Kissimmee and we brought it back to tie only to eventually lose.  But we are a completely different team from that first event. And this was the revenge tour…

The Heat/Thunder match put us in X-ball rather early which I felt was an advantage to us.  We already knew what we wanted to do and how to do it. 

That 5th point was the game changer.  They put in their 2nd line as if they felt the game was in the books.  But we didn’t get that memo (and remember, we can’t read anyway).  There was just under 10 minutes left after all.  We put one up on the board.  And that’s all we would need to steal the momentum.

It doesn’t go unnoticed that Sergei was playing tall over home on the previous breaks and then filtering to the center.  We decided to turn a gun on him and get the elimination.  Now, I am only guessing but perhaps they looked down on paper and figured their 5 best alive on the break beats us a larger percentage of the time.  We decided to start focusing on taking that snake side tower sooner which would “trap” the Russians and hopefully force them into the kill box.  We had seen them do what we called “double double” before, so we took center early and got a second point on the board.  Letting Berdnikov get out to the snake side was disappointing but we flipped the script D side.  Justin Bailey got to drop the hammer on Berdnikov as a bonus for our 2nd point.…

I did not anticipate them to continue with the double/double… but this is why I make the assumption in the paragraph above that they figured they would just need to get their best 5 out alive and kill clock.  I called a timeout to give my guys a bit of a breather and make sure we all knew the game plan and situation.  We knew that if they didn’t take that snake side tower early, they would most likely concede the gap between the doritos and that first small brick D side.  And if they didn’t take the first dorito looking inside,  that would allow us to take a line through the center undetected.

Strangely, the Legion came out with double/double again (meaning everything stated above could come to fruition).  So Stu took the center-line and got the kill but got caught.  We spread to snake corner drawing guns which allows Drew Bell to do Drew Bell stuff down the D side and trade.  That drew a gun and now Daniel fed the snake.  Daniel shot the last Russian but Aaron Pate decided to run through with the goon hand just to make sure and hit the buzzer with 1 second left. 

Goon hand Pate. Thanks to Trevorwillpb for the shot! Check him out on IG and FB

And this is why I am religious.

Even though we had just had an amazing point, emotions got a little high.  The Canes have several rules about pit control and we all started to break them… but just for a bit.  The disruption was over the 1 second point.  We needed that additional time to get my guys squared away but it almost put us over the edge… not really.  But it could have. That’s on me.  We finally get our decorum back with a little laughter and knew that, with the overtime point, we needed to get back to base play, didn’t get in too much of a hurry, and let the play develop the way we knew how. Once again, the pressure lay squarely on the Legion.

This was a crap shoot point.  Part of my job is to determine what I think the opponent may do.  I was torn here statistically.  Again, in my mind, they were looking at the “paper”… their 5 beats our 5… So we figured they would go safe with a Dorito 1, the two cans and home.  That or their double/double.  When they broke with double double, and we made it out 5 alive, I smiled ear to ear.  We shot one on the break and quickly dropped another…  slow steady grind until they were none and we were three.  Five unanswered points against the Russians in 9 minutes.  Incredible performance from my guys.

VS Heat (again)

This was a chess match.  Best way to describe it.  We made a couple of mental errors here and they ultimately cost us the match. But I think we gained a little respect…

Both teams lost a can on the first point.  Stu made a great center push but we died behind him leaving Pate in a 1 on 2 situation.  Heat struck first.  Heat followed that point up by shooting two of us on the break and we couldn’t generate anything.  2-0 Heat.  Obviously Heat was taking our approach and just executing it better.  Our guns came back into play on the 3rd point and we were back in it with 5 bodies alive.  2-1.

We both broke the exact same way on the 4th point and we struck first shooting Federov.  We also established a strong center with Stu and Pate early.  Monville attempted to wrap and paid for it allowing Stu to trade with Harmon in the Tower. Searight got the last kill and we were now tied.  The execution of the goals on that point were pretty darn near perfect.

Of course, this is where we end up shooting ourselves in the foot a bit metaphorically and literally. The guys decided to let the clock run down a bit (40 seconds if you only count standing at the box).  I was at the net with my arms open wondering what they were doing.  Then Searight decided to shoot himself in the foot…yes, on purpose and for a laugh. I did chuckle. The time loss would be one of a few mental errors that would haunt us later. 

The next point haunts me still too.  We shot two on the break but gave those bodies back with a penalty (top of the pod hit on a dive – it happens – these were our penalties all weekend. Pod or hopper hit penalties). We shot another but we then gave two more almost immediately in exchange.  Devolved into a 2 on 1 in about 30 seconds.  3-2 Heat.

We know we can win the match.  And it looked as if we were going to tie it up on the next point.  We lost a 4 on 3 instead.  But still lots of time on the clock. 4-2 Heat.

We struck first and got Monville then get a shot in on Federov.  However, we spent a little longer than normal filtering but I was okay with it since we were still well above 3 minutes.  Searight caught one but Daniel made it out snake way and we repositioned to close. Stu shot Tyler and the rest fall.  We are one point down with about 2:50 left in the match.

I felt all we needed to do was be a bit quicker with our secondaries.  Thing was, Heat knew that too.  As I watched the next break, it was if Todd and I both had the same conversation with our teams.  We lost two quickly but I am in the pit begging (not too loud of course) for a penalty on Sam.  We got it and it was now 3v3.

What unfolded over the next 2 minutes was… crazy.  Aaron Pate made a WICKED wrap and snap shot on Chad George in the snake at about 30 seconds.  Daniel Camp got on his horse and fed the snake and went to Heat’s side of the field.  He saw Federov who had re-positioned and applied pressure.  Pate cleared and wrapped putting a shot on the back of Ryan Smith’s head before Federov shot him… just as Daniel shot Fedorov.  If Searight had 2 more seconds, we would have hit that buzzer and taken it into overtime… again. Or maybe Ryan gets a major… the world will never know.

5th place for the event.  As I understand it, we are the first rookie pro team to ever go undefeated in prelims and have the first-place seed headed into Sunday.  Not a bad consolation prize, however, we felt that had we got past Heat, the revenge tour obviously would have continued and very well may have culminated in another first in PB history…

We have to take these mistakes (Coming out flat, tandem line getting too long, penalties, clock management, coach not arguing for a call, etc.) and learn from them.  Trust me, they are fresh on our brains.  But I have to say, I am incredibly pleased with how my guys carried themselves. Not just with the way they played, they played great… but they really kept their composure and a “can do” attitude all weekend. I know the goal of a coach/team is to put wins on the board. But the more I watch these men overcome obstacles, haters/doubters, life events, and still maintain a positive and good attitude while bringing their A-game, the more I feel like we are chalking up wins in the right column. We will be better for it.  See you at Cup.  Until then…

Be water my friends.

10 Man Mech and Other Fairytales

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

If playing competitive 10-man mechanical paintball is like riding a bike, then I’m Joe Biden…

About to play my first match of 10 man mech!

I’m kidding. I’m not that bad.

Zen had the privilege of guesting with the Saints professional paintball program at this past weekend’s Pittsburgh Open Classic held at Urban Assault Paintball in McDonald, PA.  And let me tell you, every paintball player should experience a 10-man event like this in their career.  I highly recommend it, especially for competitive X-ball types.

Besides being there with your boys, you get to see and catch up with old friends you don’t see as often and, of course, make new ones. All while participating in a competitive adrenaline-pumping retro style of paintball.  While those things and the nostalgia were rather intoxicating, I couldn’t help but recognize something else.

I started my paintball career in the woods and have played throughout paintball’s progression from woods to pallet fields, to hyper-ball, to air-ball (I have played scenario games as well and those are a good time too).  But as a player and a coach only participating in “speedball” and/or X-ball the last 22 years, my original skill-sets that were needed for those classic styles of play, I found to have significantly diminished.  And I became hyper aware of this before the end of day 1.

The old man back in ’99 or so.

I am fond of saying Paintball is paintball and I still stand by that… albeit with a caveat or two. I’m not willing to eat crow just yet.  Whereas, yes, the basic principles of field walking, planning, and engagement are similar, there are so many more aspects to this style that make it… well…. larger?  No, that’s not the word… complex?  Yes, that’s it.  Complex.

Obviously, the scale is greater; 10 men instead of 5, and one 10 minute (or under ICPL rules 12 minutes) game to get it right as opposed to multiple points within 15 minutes.  And, of course, there are 4 completely different types of fields to walk as opposed to 1.

I must admit, I was incredibly excited about being a player for this event.  The Saints are led by my friends and incredibly experienced players Kevin Fillers, Adam Smith, and Shawn Terry.  My job was to play paintball.  JUST PLAY!  To do what was asked of me and do it the best I could.  But boy, was I in for an eye opener.

Let’s start with field walking.  Now, I am no stranger to field walking, much less walking multiple fields, or even strange fields in the woods.  But it became painfully apparent it is a perishable skill set.  As I stated earlier, scope and scale were significantly different and requires almost 4th dimensional thinking, specifically on one field.

*Zen Note – for those of you wondering what 4th dimensional thinking is, I am no expert but to sum up my understanding of it and the application of its use in this scenario, it is the ability to see “the invisible”.  To disengage your mind from your 5 senses and use your mind to feel and sense the unseen.  To give the unseen substance.

The event venue consisted of a Hyperball field, a Mounds field, a “Hybrid” field, and a Woods field.

The Hyperball field was pretty straight forward, even with 10 guys out there.  This type of paintball, in my mind, translates perfectly well.  It was obvious from the get go that owning the centers, especially the “D” side early, was paramount to winning.  Our first two matches were on this field.  I was supposed to play the 2nd match but after the boys dominated our first match, I wanted to keep that mojo going.  I sat myself so the team could continue that “momentum” (I put that in parenthesis as I recently read an interesting take that momentum in paintball is bunk.  The take was insightful but flawed.  But I digress).  By the way, this hyperball field had an awesome layout.  I regretted doing this later only because we didn’t get to play that field again.

The infamous “Mounds” field…  This one was my nemesis.  It did not like me, and I did not like it.  Which is funny because almost EVERYONE I talked to; this was their favorite field.  I played the top corner area near the net/road which appeared to have the highest early attrition rate on the field.  Walking this field, understanding threat location and probability, developing codes for it, was very interesting.  The guys came up with a zone/area approach which was brilliant and significantly helped my understanding of in-game data.  Trying to apply my normal process to the field walk, whereas it can work, took some finagling.  Luckily, I had some rather experienced guys there to guide me through it all.  This is the one field where the 4th dimensional thinking would have come in handy. Beware the single ball that falls from the above vegetation to land on your hopper below…in front of a ref. I shot 1 guy on this field… and was one of the first three deaths on the field both times we played it. Needless to say I was…. disappointed in myself.

The mounds field… and where I played. Or tried. Those who played it well are greater men than me.

The Hybrid field I felt I contributed the most to as I could actually see things now (both during the field walk and in game).  Solid Communication on this field was imperative.  Of course, solid communication is imperative in all paintball, but it was really stressed on this one specific to getting data from one end of the field to the other. I also had my best game on this field which is funny because I kept wishing I had got to play the hyper ball field… On this field, beware of players losing their minds at the end of the game (inside joke). Shot a few on this one and even lived to the end on one or two.

Old man back in the late 90’s on a “Hybrid” type field. Take this thing and put it in the woods. That should give you an idea of what it was like.

Finally, we had the woods field.  I thought this is where I would really shine.  And then I realized just how large and odd shaped this particular field was.  Cross field communication would be damn near impossible.  You would have to play 2 or 3 “mini games” on this field and hope things went well for your partners in their skirmish area of the field.  This field really stressed situational awareness of what was in front of you and what was potentially working its way around elsewhere to wreck you. A stream of paint would materialize out of nowhere! Old man had some good and some bad on this one. Helped break one game open which was fun.

Quick summary, the Hyperball field was pretty straight forward – roll your gun, work into important spots, take ground, deny them ground, slow steady squeeze.  The mounds was about taking ground early, showing one thing while actually doing another.  Stealth could win or blunt force trauma could win.  One game was won in about 2 minutes… dude just ran straight through the middle, shot 2-3 guys, grabbed the flag and ran back.  His own team didn’t even know what had happened!  Hybrid field was dependent on which side you got.  One side (the right) was better set up to take ground early on the top side vs the other.  Both had equal centers and bottom ends from what I could tell but the key here was blowing out an access point and then flooding it. The woods field was the one field that you could argue there was an advantage to be had from the coin toss (this decided who got to pick which side they wanted to play).  Best way to describe it would be there was a “top” side where you had the “high” ground and could take key areas quickly off the break.

I also found the aspect of scoring at these events fascinating as well.  The way you played a match may be determined by what was happening in your bracket from a points perspective as well as WHERE you were playing your opponent or where one of your opponents would be playing one of THEIR matches.  Very cool stuff.

The moral of the story is this type of play really pushes a speedball/X-ball player’s capabilities.  It takes you out of your comfort zone.  It makes you use ALL your skill sets and strains them to the max.  It pushes the senses.  I came away from the event thinking I (or even the Canes) need to do more of this recreationally on some off weekends as I think it can really round out your strategic game. We should always try something new to keep things fresh anyway. Who knows… you may find a new respect and love for it.

Beginning of day 2 things had clicked with me and I was able to tap into those old skill sets.  Of course, I had a lot of supportive help along the way from my teammates. And that’s what this is really about. Building the sport up and bringing new players into the fold. Having a good time.

I would like to send a big shout and thank you to my teammates:

  • Kevin Fillers
  • Shawn Terry
  • Adam Smith
  • Justin Bailey
  • Ben Foster
  • Ryan Gibbons
  • Josh Baske
  • Sam Silberg
  • Jason Perse
  • Adam Perkins

I hope I get the opportunity to share the field with you guys again.  You guys made the old man feel welcome, showed me a good time, and how cool this style of paintball can be! Thank you!

And thank you to another one of the best pit crews I have had to honor and privilege to be around! Pete and Isaac, you are awesome!

Be water my friends.

2022 NXL Mid Atlantic Open Recap

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

As we headed into our 3rd pro event in Philly, the word for the team and the weekend was supposed to be “discipline”. Unfortunately, the word ended up being “disappointing”. That may sound harsh but sometimes it takes a little tough love to fuel one’s team and wake us up. Did we accomplish too much too fast? No. We are just beginning and I don’t believe we have met our full potential. That isn’t intended to sound any other way than I know what my guys are capable of. We did not rise to our potential nor meet our capabilities this past event. We know we can play paintball at the highest level. Beating those top tier teams as well as the lower tier teams has to happen consistently. We are not there yet as several opportunities were missed.

So here is my recap and my analysis of this past event.

Match 1 vs New York Xtreme

We knew headed into this match that Xtreme had a full and healthy squad. They were missing Jeri Caro and Pat Kraft in Dallas but had them back for this event. With the addition of Corey Hall, we thought their aggressive chaotic style would probably be tempered with some controlled d-side attacks. We were confident with our guns on the break and that was the initial plan. Play pocket with guns up, pivot off positioning, get up the field/expand quickly, and slowly squeeze. Perfect example would be the first point of this match. We kill their wide on the break d-side, take center and expand out d-side, this shifts a gun (or at least allows us opportunity to bully a gun) and we take snake as well… slow, steady squeeze on the throat.

That was how the weekend was supposed to go. That type of execution. It’s what I have come to expect from my guys.

Third point in we showed a hint of what was to come this event. Little dink outs. Getting clipped on a knuckle or the like. Just sloppy enough to give your opponent the advantage. We countered appropriately but squandered position. Justin Bailey tried to get clever and burn additional clock but eventually gets caught. The 4th point is another example of that expansion after we shoot Xtreme’s snake on the break. Xtreme countered well but we owned the “high ground” so to speak. A little slow on our reads for that one. That 5th point was not meant to be a defensive play. However, Xtreme had finally zoned up well and beat us to secondaries. Knowing what Xtreme had seen success with and what they would want, the next two points we decided to get our guns up early, shoot their 1 d-side and their center filter early in the first of those points (forcing them to expand into our already expanded guns). More of the same with next point – good zone control and expansion by my guys. We did play one more point and yes, we did play defensively. Mike Brown once again proved why he is on this roster. He shot Kraft in a 2 on 1 situation and then defended the buzzer. The 35 second point, we zoned up, they ran into guns and got a penalty… Johnny’s your uncle.

Match 2 vs Edmonton Impact

The 3rd time, they say, is a charm. This is not always the case in paintball, or at least if you are the New Orleans Hurricanes playing Impact for the 3rd time in your rookie pro season. I heard it said that we got their “adjustment” game. Their adjustment was to play the field like we did… they just did it better. Get your guns up, expand out through center aggression, back your ones up quickly, bully guns, win.

1st point we got a minor for a hopper hit putting us in a 4 on 3 situation. Stuart Ridgel got creative in the center in an attempt to get the drop and even the odds. He missed his shot and re-positioned to try and catch d-side sleeping. Unfortunately, so had Impact’s d-side (Cornell). They owned the snake and D’s and bullied our last two.

The next point a bad seam read (route/line) and an untimely death cost us. The point after that, we beat them to the punch but lost gunfights.

Next, we went toe to toe with their guns for a quick set up of a 3 on 2. Drew Bell took advantage and pressed the action d-side while Aaron Smith fed the snake. We got on the board but that would be the last time.

We continued to go blow for blow on the break with them. Next point a 2v2 which we lost. Now we are in a position where the clock is part of the equation. We had to take some bites meaning taking ground on a team who has guns like us on the break. Jacob Searight did his job, got in the snake, took ground and dug out some kills. Aaron Smith backed him up but lost a gunfight putting Searight in a bad scenario. However, Searight got squirrelly, almost clipped Zuppa in the corner but missed his shot. Great effort by my guy. We had 5 alive on the last point with one of those being dorito one. We even shot one of theirs on the break but gave Mouse the snake. We secondaried quick and had a chance to “turn” the field since Impact pressed the snake side. We matched them in the snake as well as got support that way. This is a point of contention for me as I feel we should have pressed the body d-side. Right before Stu traded with Mouse, Mouse shot our center push. Chaos ensued and it came down to a 1 on 1 between Aaron Pate and Justin Rabackoff. Pate has won a red coin once already this year but it didn’t happen this time. We needed to consider spread so we let Rab run the clock down.

Tough loss. This spread would end up costing us in the end.

Match 3 vs Seattle Thunder

This is the one that hurts the most from this weekend. Great guys on Thunder but this is a match we should have won.

We started off right by shooting their 1 on the snake side, spread snake corner, filtered center, and just started peeling them off. Next point, we won the break again but then gave them bodies with a minor for a pack hit. 1 to 1. Next, Thunder shot our 1 on D side followed by another quick kill and then took big ground (smart). Slow squeeze… 2 to 1 Thunder. They shoot two of us on the break next point. Thunder did a good job of creeping up to get a shot on Daniel Camp. I have to concede since I know Thunder will just sit with a 4 on 2 body advantage. 3 to 1. Our guns on the break show back up making it a 5 on 3 off the break. Smith made the snake, which allowed Stuart to clock in and find the seam. 3 to 2 now. Thunder took snake on the break. Smith matched him pretty quickly but they filtered to the snake wedge setting the trap. Smith got 1 cross field and eventually got a 2nd before trading with Sakaguchi. Drew Bell got a little sloppy in his bunker which makes it a 2 on 2. But Aaron Pate smoked Thunders D side attacker and between him and Daniel Camp, Scotty Grahams’ time was limited. Tied up at 3 and we have the momentum.

Then things went south. On the next point, Thunder shot our 1 on snake side and filtered very fast to both sides of center to trap us in pocket. What you didn’t know is there was an equipment malfunction on the d-side so we were one gun down. We killed one and missed an opportunity to get another and I have to concede it. 4 to 3. When we made it out 5 alive the next point to own the center early as well as pressed the dorito 3 shortly after, I knew we were going to tie it up again. It was a 5 on 3 our advantage… and then disaster struck. As Stu probed the center, Daniel Camp took a hard bounce and called for a check. The ref came in, checked him, and called him CLEAN! So Daniel got tight thinking time to stay alive and piece it together. He doesn’t shoot his gun. Unfortunately, another ref decided to throw a RED on him. This is where I get frustrated. If the first ref called him clean and you as a second ref decided you see a hit, just pull the player! There was no need for a red flag right there. You even see the first ref who called him clean looking confused… We should have won that point. Don’t get me wrong, we shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. I’m forced to concede and figure out how to score 2 in a minute ten. They zone up, we are forced into their guns, and we lost 6 to 3.

Inconsistent guns, some individual play mistakes, and bad communication cost us that match. After the match we discussed it and were once again, all on the same page.

Match 4 vs San Diego Aftermath

Prior to the event, this was the match I was most looking forward to. I think Aftermath and the ‘Canes match up well. Were I not coaching New Orleans, as a paintball fan in general, I would have wanted to watch this match. Big fan of Mike Hinman’s too so, there is that.

We tried setting the pace by getting an off the break kill and playing our game. We spread the field, Stu made a great trade… then we got a little sloppy D side allowing Aftermath in the snake. However, the one two punch of Aaron Pate and Daniel Camp won the point. Funny note – Daniel shot Thomas Kim cross field with his first ball and didn’t know it. Hence he and Pate trying to find the last body before Aftermath conceded the point. 1 to 0 us. We ended up in another 2 vs 2 the next point after some great counters from both teams. But it was the “Thunder and Lightning” team again of Pate and Camp who pulled off the win. 2 to 0 us.

So both teams survived the next two break outs. Aftermath positioned well in the first breakout with dorito 1 and center snake side brick. We peeled off their 1 on snake side but their center brick got 2 of us in quick succession. We fought back but not enough. 2-1 us. During the second, we took center dorito side first but they owned god and dorito 1. We dropped the first body by looking into a ball but took their god player almost immediately after. Mike Mesa made a great shot on Stu in the center and they built upon that kill pressing the issue making it 2 to 2.

We lost our snake 1 on the next point but countered well on the d-side with Drew and Stu taking good ground. But the clock started to grind here. About 3 minutes in Stu traded with Thomas Kim in dorito 3 but Aftermath made the snake and we didn’t see it. Drew Bell was at the dorito 4. Mesa tried to counter but got caught cross field opening d side up for Drew but not before Aftermath’s snake player wrecked us. I have to towel with just over 2 minutes left. 2-3 Aftermath.

But little did anyone know… I have a secret weapon for situations like this.

Britt Simpson.

In the chaos that ensues after Stu cut through the center, Frank Antetomaso made a mistake. Had he shot Daniel Camp, sat down and just shot cross to protect the box, Aftermath would have won the point. Instead, he ran down the snake and got shot by my boy Britt. This left Aftermath’s back center alone. Drew Bell launched past Britt to trade with the home and Britt, recognizing the opportunity, ran full send train style to follow Drew up and got the buzzer. Overtime. Incredible shot by Britt, incredible read by Drew, and incredible situational awareness by Britt again to keep us in it.

We knew Thomas hadn’t taken a deep route yet so we shoot for the dive. And we got it. Stu, knowing the count and that Aftermath went to snake side brick, understood he had to get that guy off the field. And he did. Unfortunately, we lost Drew filling out. This made it a 3 on 3 within the first 20 seconds of the overtime point. The next 4 minutes and 30 seconds would drive a coach to drink. Mesa started making moves down the d-side but Aaron Smith checked himfrom the god at dorito 2. So both teams are mirrored up snake side but Aftermath is wider with the dorito 2 compared to our home… When Aftermath made it to snake corner, I will admit I panicked a little… my guys saw it but still… until I saw Pate sneak out to the d-side and I was pretty sure Aftermath didn’t see that. But then Aftermath fed the snake! The chess game just got real! Daniel Camp recognized the situation, connected with Smith and sent him to the snake side wedge to bait the snake. But then Aftermath put snake corner into the snake as well! However, Pate took additional ground on the d-side into dorito 3, then dorito 4!! Smith launched and traded with the snake and on that move, Daniel repositioned to the snake corner! Aaron Pate, big gun swinging, smoked Mesa on the d-side! Hallberg decided to go forward and trade with Daniel, and Aaron Pate ran it in to win the overtime point. I decided it was okay to breathe again.

Great match up against a great team.

We end up 2 and 2 with a margin not good enough to snag one of the wild card seeds. We ended up 13th with Infamous and AC Diesel finishing ahead of us in 12th and 11th respectively.

That being said, I had a thought later that day as I watched the scores for the afternoon bracket unfold. As you may or may not know, the two wild cards came from the same bracket. So 4 out of 5 teams in the same bracket made Sunday. The two who won the bracket – Tampa Bay Damage and San Antonio X factor – and then the two wild cards – Portland Uprising and ML Kings. What did they all have in common or why does this matter you may ask? They all got 4 or greater point spreads against the Latin Saints. Particularly Uprising and ML Kings… Uprising with a 6 point win over Saints and Kings with a 5 point win. Just an observation… I am not implying in any way that we should have made it. We shouldn’t have… not with the way we played. But I found that interesting the way it played out.

Key takeaways from this event. The issues that plagued us are not our normal issues. The guys know to take a beat/take a breathe when they make those key bunkers, they know to connect/communicate with their teammates on the field, they know not to play individual paintball or try to do it “alone”, and the twos usually follow the ones up quicker. Oh, and winning those low body situations (3 v 2’s and 2 on 2’s)

We have voiced it to one another and we all agree these issues cost us. But right now, it’s just words. We have to put it into action. And we will. Time to come back stronger for Chicago.

Be water my friends.

2022 NXL Lone Star Open Recap (cont)

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

Continued from previous blog on May 7th

Saturday

During that first point on Saturday against Columbus LVL, our guns paid off early as we dropped 2 of them on the break. However, we almost gave it up when we let their center player get dynamic. But the boys maintain discipline with comms and we start the match by winning the first point 3 alive. 1-0. We take their snake player on the next point but they shoot our center. Then we lose our snake shortly after. They had successfully moved the skirmish line and, by default, had a better spread. They get a minor but the damage was done. 1-1. Next point we wanted to get eyes up. Knowing they would take center, we went a little short on snake to key up on him with our own short delay to center. It didn’t play out the way I had envisioned it. But hey, that’s free will right? The beauty of this though is, in the skirmish, Mike Brown takes ground D-side and puts them on their heals to close it out (keep an eye on Mr Brown. Great communicator, good field awareness, and solid gun). 2-1. Now, like Heat, we noticed LVL was somewhat conceding D-side so we decide to spread the field early on the next point and try our little bait and switch again for their center… and we get him. During the close, the LVL tower player gets smoked on the elbow and continues to play but it was borrowed time with a 3 on 1. I only mention this because, had he drawn the penalty, we would have been on the power play next point. Woulda coulda shoulda. 3-1. Anyway, lots of time on the clock (somewhere north of 8 minutes) so, we aren’t taking anything for granted. We had just shown them a D-side bite with a short snake and delayed center. We had noticed their center played tall so we were going to take a shot at him and end up getting a shot on their center attacker on the break. However, we let them take ground D-side as well as have the center with a secondary. But here is where our comms came into play. We really have been emphasizing this at practice. Aaron Smith takes snake, misses the center but gets the info across field. The guys also realized LVLs snake side wasn’t pushing which was odd. So it let’s us make a move and get a two for one followed by the squeeze play built off the chaos. 4-1. Still lots of time left in this match though and LVL starts showing why they are a Pro team. Their controlled chaos on the next point made the difference (with a little help from our impatience). 4-2. We anticipated they would want to take ground on the following point and expected us to get guns up and play short. We decide to take a big bite D side in an effort to get wide and make them wary of a hard press. Unfortunately our D-side bite gets peeled off. We sneak a shot on their center but then… a grenade goes off in our back line. Just before my boy takes their side of the field to close out the point, we lose our last in the back… no point and still 4-2. Points like that you have to understand/what happened and move on. And we did. So we know their was around 3 minutes on the clock. 2 point game. Lots can happen and it did. LVL scores the point but not before Drew Bell almost steals it from them and kills additional time off the clock. 4-3. I know that if I can get 5 out alive we will win the point. I guess that LVL, with the amount of time left on the clock, is not going to try to take too big of bites but rather spread to try and make something develop. So we take center, dedicate a gun to D side and shoot the snake. It pays off. Happy for the guys who had never beat LVL in semi-pro to beat them in our first pro square off. Game: Hurricanes 5-3

Lots of trades in the center at this event. If you could do it clean, you had a distinct advantage

We are now sitting at 2-1 with the potential to go 3-1 and punch our ticket into Sunday.

Right before our last match of the prelims against the MLKings, I told the guys in our huddle, “We do not rise to the challenge. That denotes that the challenge is above us and nothing is above us. It is in front of us and we will meet it head on and with extreme prejudice.” And that was the mentality we would use to fuel this match. We knew the Kings had a rather aggressive approach to this layout. They would throw a body on the cross D side to try and slow our own D side, set up in the center to try and contain snake aggression, and then throw body after body at the snake to try and bully and push there. We felt our approach was a pretty good counter to that. Unfortunately, we ended up with a bad start right before point one. It was a broken play and my guys tried to salvage it and almost did but Donaldson and Betancourt had other plans. 0-1. The next point we trade snake players, we trade center players, they get a penalty, and then a heads up read by Betancourt costs us again. 0-2. When the Canes came into the pit after that second point, we took a breath, calmed down, and did a mental reset. We went to bread and butter knowing the Kings would go meat-grinder for the snake. We almost drop the point but head on swivel from my guys saves us. 1-2. Too close so time for the next gear. Next point we went heavy center to get more guns on the King’s favorite approach. We get the first and second kill from the snake, draw the gun to the snake and cut through the center. 2-2. Kings key up on our center finally but we pick another off out of their center. Donaldson should have got a penalty for a spin when Drew Bell dropped the hammer but no flag. Paintball is full of karma and Daniel Camp gets a bounce… don’t give my boy a second chance because the majority of the time he will make you regret it. And he did. He ends up making the most of that second life winning another 1 on 1 coin. 3-2.

Now… I need to explain something about the next point. No, it was not planned and was not a “Zen” rope a dope. What you witnessed was one of the most selfless acts of a player I have seen in a very long time. We had 3 Aarons in the pit at this event. Two players (Aaron Smith, Aaron Pate) and one former player (Aaron Barnes) who was now assisting the team. We are up by one. Some jackwagon behind my guys on the box starts yelling “The Canes have 6! The canes are starting with 6!”. Thinking that maybe two Aarons were called and knowing that if you start with 6 it is an automatic swing point to the Kings, my boy stepped off the box to avoid the penalty and trusted his guys. Because of this amazing deed, and him putting good back into the world, (not too mention our lucky charm and stalwart survivalist Justin Bailey in on the point) the Canes win the 4 on 5 point even with the tomfoolery of our opponent’s pit. That is selflessness and that is what the Canes are about. Trusting each other. Now Aaron said he screwed up and was incredibly sorry. I say he just showed me one of the many reasons he is wearing a Hurricane jersey. 4-2.

Selflessness – great quality in a player

The next point we wanted to spread the field and put ourselves in positions to counter. To some, it looked like a clock kill and, for the most part, it ended up being one. I’m not mad. The goal was to get guns up, place the defense D side for center control, take snake corner to contain and then push. But the Kings were fast on their secondaries which pretty much trapped us. I told the guys in the pit, “They respect our guns.” And I guess they did. Because even when they were on the power play half way through the point and at the 50, we were able to burn over 3 minutes. 4-3 with under a minute to go. Now the kings have to come. We take ground in the center and set up the cross. Love the heads up decision by my guys to go get the buzzer. Game: Hurricanes 5-3

And then there were 8 headed to Sunday.
And we were among them.

Sun Tzu would say, “Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack.” Were he alive today, he would have said the same thing here. It’s about balance.

The hard work, constant pressure to better ourselves, and TEAMWORK had, to this point, paid off. We were happy with our progress but knew there were small mistakes that we could not allow to occur on Sunday. After all, we had pulled Edmonton Impact again and they were looking darn near flawless at this event. They were the only undefeated team in the prelims. We would have to be darn near flawless too. We discussed how the game would slow down… we anticipated some long points and that we would have to be on point each and every one of them. We have the tools to be successful against these top tier teams. But until we beat one of them, it’s just pillow talk.

Point one was a “feeler”. Both teams essentially go pocket trying to get 4 guns up. We lose our 1st snake side attacker and Impact does some quick secondaries. Stu misses his first shot on JC and then trades with him at center. Impact recognizes opportunity and again fills out on snake and d-side, tightening the noose. Impact’s discipline really showed here. This point was a great example of what I talked about above regarding the game slowing down. A three and a half minute point with a slow pressure squeeze. 0-1. Point 2 we see Axel on the field. We drop their snake side 2 (I think it was Resar) and Aaron Pate, who had been a consistent and reliable anchor all weekend, pushes D-side to counter. Regrettably they make it wide on us D-side as well. This is probably because we had 1 or 2 guys doing the same job for a brief second which gave a window to Impact to sneak into dorito 2. However, they didn’t see Drew Bell sneak out snake side and he drops the dorito 2 player for Impact. Once we dropped Axel, it became similar to the first point just with the roles reversed. A 2 minute point. 1-1. We decide to press the pace. We pride ourselves on our ability to shift gears so we take ground snake side, center, AND d-side. Unfortunately, we lose our snake side attacker and they get a quick clean trade in the center. They executed well and we didn’t process fast enough. 1 minute point. 1-2. The next point Impact shows off their gun skills as we lose our d side 1 and our center to his first engagement. Matt Hamilton goes offensive in the snake like a champ and Drew Bell tries to slow the bleeding by taking the center. Impact wins the gun fights though and we are down 3-1. Impact is dialed in on that snake lane as we lose our snake on the break again. They were in the 50’s before you know it and we are down 4-1. At this point, my mind is thinking I have to get 5 guys out alive. I decide to use the snake side tower and get a d-side asset to push the action while getting as many guns up as we could. It pays off as Impact gets a penalty, the guys do our meticulous push polish things off. 4-2. We needed that. It’s a 2 point game with a little over 5 minutes left. We can do this. Then JC pulls a three pack on us (we’re going to get you JC… and your little dog too!).

Soon JC…. soon.

5-2 with just over 4 minutes. Still doable I’m thinking. We take the snake side cube in hopes of catching Impact when they set up to contain and plan for a fast filter. Knowing that the center and the snake side are your fastest access, we put assets in place to find the hole. We make snake, get crafty in center and keep two guns anchored to control counter punches. Not as fast as we had hoped but we score the point. 5-3. Now… we are down 2 points with 2 minutes left…against Impact… who have shot one of us off the break every point. We have to move into their guns. If you watch the point unfold, even us losing the player on the break didn’t matter. We are attacking the snake. We are pressing the d-side as opposed to the center. We get into position and here is where the real disadvantage is when you find yourself in these scenarios. Not a lot of time to communicate data. Don’t get me wrong, you SHOULD… but most of the time your guys are probing for holes in a hurry with limited information. So we work our way into great position aaaaaannnd… my friend Mike Zuppa catches one of us and another player catches Daniel… we concede the point and realize its time to go big. A valiant effort by my boys in that last point. Game: Impact 6-3

“Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is always an orphan.“

There is a quote by Winston Churchill that I have always appreciated. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” And THAT is what the Canes will do. We will strive to do our best each and every time we step on the field, whether at practice or at an event. Hopefully you approach your life the same.

Final comments: loved the venue but please, next time… make the pro pits the same size. I don’t think I have been spackled that much in a long time. I kid… but not really.
Congrats to Tampa Bay Damage! Incredibly happy for Joey and the guys. They looked amazing.
We will get back at it in preparation for Philly. Another incredibly tough draw so we need to come as prepared as we can.
#Rollcanes

Be water my friends

2022 NXL Lone Star Open Recap (Part 1)

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

We must have walked that field for 5 hours. We were going to leave nothing to chance. We saw the opportunity and we were going to bite it on the ass, develop lockjaw, and get dragged to death.

The two Aarons contemplating a theory from coach. Thanks to NXL media gang for the shot!

Prior to this event, and in anticipation of the blind layout, I was developing a field walking process that utilized a coding system of geometry and statistical analysis that would, in theory, speed up our field IQ. The idea was to pack 2 weekends into 5 hours. We tested it the weekend before the event by throwing up a random field and then trying it out. It worked for the most part. I was pleased thinking this was another tool on our belt. But when it came right down to it, walking the field with my players and getting their input and individual perspective was the key. I have some smart fellas on my crew. The guys provided me with excellent feedback and data which allowed us to develop some solid plans. And their capabilities really shined this weekend too when it came to execution. I got to really coach this weekend and though the stress was high, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Now, before I get into this recap, I want to address a couple of things… First, I want to make a comment about my friend and captain of the team, Stuart Ridgel. If you watched the webcast, you probably heard his name a lot. Stuart played lights out this past weekend, hands down/no doubt. He played the center of the field better than many of the seasoned standard bearers for that spot. But I want to make something perfectly clear… he cannot do what he does without the other 4 guys out there on the field with him. He knows it, I know it, and his teammates know it. I am not taking anything away from my boy’s performance because it bordered on legendary… but next event you very well may hear another name(s). My point is that this team is way bigger than any one player. I have a great team of men under me and their work ethic along with their discipline is a strength I wouldn’t trade for 10 Ollie Langs.

Secondly, I want to address expectations. My expectations are high but reasonable. Always will be. And here is why:
I have some real maturity on this team. My guys are Dads… great dads. My guys are husbands or boyfriends… great husbands and great boyfriends… but they are all working men. Career men. They grind all week at jobs, come home and take care of their families, and then on the weekends, they put that same energy and effort into their grind on the field. They do this because they already know that is what it takes to be successful. We manage our own expectations and focus on our goals. We met our goals at the first event. And we exceeded them at this one. We should be proud of that and we are. But we all know there is much more work to do and it isn’t going to be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. And if we fall short or fail, then we learned and you better keep an eye on us because the more we learn the stronger we get.

Check out Kurrite Photography. Pretty vivid stuff!

A few of you have asked me what are we doing differently to prepare. And the answer is the same… nothing. We haven’t changed anything. We are highly motivated and recognize that accomplishing difficult tasks takes hard work and discipline. We approach everything we can with a positive mindset, we set goals (and write them down), we track progress, we stay focused, we stay humble, we have fun, and we DON’T listen to the “noise”. We are #oneheartbeat.

With all that being said, we understand consistency is key. And it will be tough because this sport and the teams in our division are all tough. This event was a step in the right direction but Philly is just around the corner and there is still a lot of work to do.

Zen note* before I forget…
THANK YOU – Ryan Williams for the feedback and sounding board, Matty Hotard, Andrew Rodriguez, and Justin Spencer for not only being clutch along with the rest of the pit crew but dang if you guys can’t motivate with some speeches. Kellie, Jessica, Brad, and Barnes – you guys are the best! Pit Crews are often overlooked but not on this team and not on my watch. From the bottom of my heart and the team’s, thank you for your help. Because of all of you, we could focus on the tasks in front of us knowing you had it under control.

FRIDAY

The 1st match against New York Xtreme was interesting. We were the first two teams playing the field so, both teams were feeling things out. As a coach who uses tendencies and statistical analysis during matches, I knew this first game was going to be a grinder. I wasn’t worried about the play calling but was prepared to be flexible. I knew we had good “theories” because that was all they were until execution. The majority of the time, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Planning is important, but adaptability is essential and that was the name of the game for this event. I was confident in our gun placement, laning, and zone development. But the variable was our opponent on a blind layout. Especially given the “chaotic” element of Xtreme. And for the most part I was right. Those first two points, we were just trying to go too fast. I remember telling the guys, take a beat… check off, check in, and execute… and once my guys had those first two points of data under their belts, we were good. No one wants to go down early (something we have got to stop doing lol) but there was still a TON of time left on the clock. We slowed it down a hair, rolled our guns, checked off our threats and used the center to remove pressure from the wings. We wanted to move the skirmish line and it worked. Set up in the center, get the snake to catch up, draw the guns and finally take ground on the D side to close the loop. I kept thinking Xtreme would counter with their own center and was putting assets in place to address but they didn’t do so until late in game. By then, we had a good groove/rhythm going. They may talk on the field but those dudes are some cool cats off of it. Game: Hurricanes 7-4

Not a bad start. Lessons learned.

We had a chance to scout Heat during their match against the MLKings. We knew Chad George and Ryan Moorhead were really going to pressure the snake side 50. So, the first point we set up a trap. It worked with Moorhead taking the bait. Our guns on break paid off as well which certainly didn’t hurt. But it’s Houston Heat. They will adjust and they did. You can’t throw a rock at that team and not potentially hit an elite player. Next point we got a little sloppy in our bunkers. Can’t be doing that against a top tier team or any team in this division for that matter. Next point we conceded the center off the break to get that snake side kill and it worked. Because it worked, it allowed us to take the center immediately after on a delay. Yes, it is a gamble but no risk, no reward. However, this is the one that would haunt us. It is a 3 on 2 but because teams exit the field through the back center, we lost the count. The guys still thought it was a 3 v 3 with an opponent snake side. We let Federov spread to the d corner and allow Monville (I think it was him, don’t remember) to get out of that center laydown to the 1st snake tower. Then they proceed to pick us off. Opportunity squandered and a lesson learned. Next we wanted to go big and see what happened. We knew if we could make the spots, we could control that center much quicker. It worked… but guns on the break and a minor penalty against Heat helped. We knew Heat only put one gun (sometimes two) on the Dside so we decided to take a big bite there while getting our guns up. Truth be told, it was communication and discipline between the last 3 Canes that won that point. Moorhead got crafty on us in the next point. I actually thought Stu saw him and was countering him when he went up… so now it’s 4-3 Heat with 1:43 left in the match. We were in good position but a minor penalty for a pack hit essentially sealed the deal. At this point I am thinking about point margin. It was under a minute, we need to take the loss. And so we did. If you are wondering why we played the 8 seconds left, we thought we might get a little more laning practice in (did you notice how many of Heat we shot on the break?). One or two less mistakes and that is a different match. One thing I learned as a coach is certain elite players will always be given the benefit of the doubt. That’s twice now where an obvious hit turned the tide and cost us at a crucial point in the game. But it is what it is. You move on because that one point isn’t what ultimately decided the game. Game: Heat 5-3

And some more lessons learned… these are the tough ones

Friday night, we did our homework. We had a later start the next morning as out first match would be at 10am so we stayed up a little later discussing our approach to the LVL and Kings matches. We thought LVL would adjust from the previous day and felt we had a good grasp of their game while feeling confident in our planning. ZEN NOTE – In Semi Pro, the ‘Canes had played LVL 3 times and never beat them. This was a driver for my guys headed into this match.

To be continued…. Next week, not next month

Be water


2022 Sunshine State Major Pro Debut

zenandtheartofpaintballLeave a comment

Now that the dust has settled on the first event, and I have somewhat caught up on my real life responsibilities, I wanted to get this written before I got too focused on Dallas. This will be a stream of thought so bear with me.

I will admit, the event was somewhat surreal. That first morning headed into the Uprising match seemed like any other paintball match. It was odd really… it didn’t feel any different, at least for me. We were there to play and do what we do. The only difference was there were people watching from the stands and there were cameras around. It actually all seemed “smaller” than I expected if that even makes sense. Don’t get me wrong. Been on the pro field plenty of times. But I don’t think we let the moment get to us. And that was good.

The New Orleans Hurricanes – Photo courtesy of NXL

We wanted to set the pace in our first match. In other words, be first to key positions on the field. Something else I wanted to do is come out and show we can shift gears effectively. In order to do this, I decided to use two lines for this event. Some questioned my approach but I believe in each one of my guys. They each bring a strength and they all need to be tested. Yes, I believe in running the horses (who is performing best at that moment)… but leading up to this event, everyone showed me they were ready to play. So that’s what I did.

In that first match, the guys executed the game plans well and succeeded in setting that pace. Our lanes were good, our zone control was as good as it could get most points, our aggressiveness and counters were good. No, we were not perfect but that is understandable. The guys were playing their first pro match against a veteran pro team. We wanted to be first to the punch, get our guns up, control the zone, then get on the attack. We were a little sloppy that first point but Stuart Ridgel made a great read to finish it. Point 2 was solid execution from the guys. We knew Uprising would want to take ground that 3rd point as they hadn’t seen success in the pocket so we keyed up and shut it down with some good laning. Things got interesting on the 4th point. We wanted to stay on the gas but by that time Uprising had found a breath. However, the composure and communication from my guys was solid. When we clipped the d-side player, I knew we were going to take the point, at least from a position perspective. Unfortunately, the pucker factor kicked up when we lost Britt Simpson from D side but Justin Bailey made the read and traded with the center. This could have been played a hundred ways but I’ll take it. And of course, that left Aaron Pate in a one on one. Recognizing he needed to protect the buzzer, he did just that. Here’s something you may not know. When Pate went forward and shot Graham Arnold, he did so because he had no paint left. Big shout to my boy for winning a red/gold coin! Our second pucker factor moment was point 5 where we get a penalty. I thought Uprising was going to head to the corner and throw a guy under him. So we keyed up on that lane and got the wide kill. The penalty on us was thrown bang bang..like fast. Luckily, Drew Bell recognizes our situation and presses the issue. Great shift by the team to counter punch in a down body situation. The final point we continued to pour the gas but so did Uprising. Clutch play and zone control won the point though. Interestingly enough, we didn’t know it at the time, but we had just met all 4 goals we had set for this event.

Aaron Pate wins a One on One coin – guy goes through gloves EVERY match.

The New Orleans Hurricanes had just won our first match in the Pro division against a seasoned team. But we all knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. We refocused and set our sights on Impact. We would get a chance to scout their one game before we stepped on the field with them.

The Impact match is where I, as a coach, made my first mistake and failed my team. I’ll get to that in a moment. We knew this was going to be a major test of our capabilities. You can say whatever you want at a moment like this to your guys; “Paint breaks on them just like anyone else” and “I don’t care what their jersey says, your jersey says New Orleans Hurricanes and that means you deserve to be here and you play YOUR game”. First point we let them be first and take ground. The second point Impact’s guns off the break were spot on and they closed immediately, essentially cutting us off from a spread. 3rd point was more of the same. 4th point what can you say… we are talking world class guns here from a top team in the sport and Axel was in our snake before we knew the down count. But here’s the thing… at no point did we consider ourselves out of the match. There was still a lot of time on that clock. And we now had a confirmed understanding of their approach. Don’t get me wrong – NO ONE wants to go down 4-0 against Impact. But we figured out how to take their game-plan away. We shifted some guns and found one hole. We dropped Zack Hill and Trevor Reasor got shot on the pack as he left his bunker to trade with my guy. Ref 04 wiped him off after the check. Drew was able to turn the field though. 4-1 now.

I remember thinking after that point …

We knew heading into this event, it was a chaotic field. You can build off that chaos or let it destroy you. Obviously we want to build off of it and go forward. We traded with several bodies in the next point and came out ahead. Matt Hamilton made the snake and did damage which is what we needed. It’s now 4-2. We knew they wanted snake corner and we knew they would go short D side in an effort to bleed the clock counting on gun skills. So we put the guns on the snake, took ground there as well and used the center to slow the d-side in case I was wrong. We beat them to the snake and started digging out the kills. 4-3 and we are within 1. I’m thinking to myself, “if I am Impact how do I adjust?” Then I thought their ego may get the best of them. They were thinking, “Guys, get to your spots and just shoot these guys.” So, I thought we should make them show us those guns again. We gamble they would think we would try to make it out 5 alive with a conservative break to get our guns up but instead we took big bites. It paid off. 4-4, tie game. However, Impact would show us those guns again in the next point. 5-4. Some will say I shouldn’t have conceded the point when I did and that we should have thought about point margin. Trust me, I was thinking about point margin but I also recognized that my boys had dug and fought hard to come back and I was going to give them the opportunity to win this match. We would take the snake wedge but they would beat us to the snake on the next point. Zuppa catches Stu entering the seam but Drew catches Zuppa. This gives us the body advantage as Matt Jackson attempted to cross to d side earlier and failed. And then we had the snake… Aaron Smith gets in there which draws the gun allowing d-side to pressure. This is a pick your poison field and Impact chose theirs…with some help from a ref. Now… this next part is very crucial and where I made a mistake. Justin Cornell of Impact gets shot by Britt Simpson. Justin then proceeds to put paint on Britt and Drew (Britt told me he will never be that nice again and I believe him). What does the ref do when he sees the hit on JC? He simply pulls him and doesn’t throw the red flag. Even the crowd roared their disapproval. A hopper hit is a yellow if you pull the trigger (they didn’t hesitate to pull the yellow on Stu in the Uprising match). A hopper hit and then you shoot my guy much less two of them? That is and should be a textbook red flag. They should have pulled Justin and his snake player and Impact should have played down a body the next point putting the ‘Canes on the power play with 1:08 left. A 5 on 4 headed into that last point… who knows what would have happened. But what SHOULD have happened is I should have marched my Sicilian/Irish butt right over to Jason Trosen and said I want that last play reviewed and I want Impact playing a man down. I didn’t. I got caught up in determining what we should do next and didn’t think to do it. That will not happen again. The only good thing that comes out of it is that my boy Daniel Camp beats Nick Leival in a one on one with one of the coolest matrix-esque moves in paintball and gets a red/gold coin! 5-5. We were in Xball now… hats off to Impact on that last point. They did what they needed to do… 6-5 final with the win going to Impact. We were now sitting on a 1-1 record heading into the next day.

Daniel Camp wins a one on one coin!

We had scouted Diesel and the Russians. My initial thought was, Diesel will adjust. Pocket was not working for them. So let’s take this data we had on them with a grain of salt until we can review their fist match tomorrow. After reviewing our data on the Russians and re-watching their games, I didn’t see them needing to adjust too much. They played a very straight game. Bully a gun with two and take ground. Super fast and aggressive. We knew we needed to fight fire with fire. We thought we had the right approach. But then, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.

The Red Legion match was the one I was most interested and excited to play. These guys were back to full strength and are a machine. This would be another big test and boy was it. We actually bounced both their wide runners on the break in the first point. Woulda coulda shoulda… they didn’t break so, doesn’t matter. Control what you can control right? But our guns were there. Second point our guns were there again and we had position but the Russians had better field awareness than us. I’ll be honest with you… I don’t exactly know what happened on that 3rd point… they ran guns up wherever they wanted. We stick Kirill but then a grenade went off in our backfield. Jacob Searight tries to save the point with a great counter aggressive move but it is was too late. The next point we were just out-played. It’s going to happen at this level. 4-0. But we had been here before. We knew we had to push the pace harder and we did. We won some gun fights and pressed forward to put a point on the board. The next point both teams shot each others snake side 1’s but we take the center first. Thought we had them contained but we let legion spread out of the D-side can. We continue to press but we get caught each time. 5-1. “Be first, be fast, but check off – there is still plenty of time in this match”. We shot their D-side the next point but draw a minor. 6-1. We are now 1 point away from being mercied. But my guys kept their cool. I started doing the math with us being down by 5 with 6.5 minutes left. We realized we had time and we could still make a game of it. We shifted away from the two line approach, adjusted some line personnel to highlight what we wanted to do. Heavy guns up with a heavy center push to increase statistical survival on break. It pays off and we win the point in under the average time required. I figured we had a minute ten per point and we did it in a minute two if memory serves. We were ahead of the curve. 6-2. We made one more mild adjustment with the guns and it pays off again. 6-3. The guys were feeling it now. We know Kirill wanted to beat us to the center so we positioned for it. We moved the skirmish line to the 40 (save for the snake) and we closed it to within 2. 6-4. And we were still ahead of the average time per point necessary. But now we are in x ball. The Russians call a time out. The point starts and we end up with a 4 on 3 advantage. Then it became a 3 on 3 with just over 2 minutes (hey, the Russians are great gun fighters). Now, I will admit… I was considering point spread as the point evolved. Two small mistakes cost us that point. Again… I almost didn’t towel. But then I looked at my guys, they were composed and we are discussing what had happened at that point. One more baby. Lets go. Say what you want but my guys gave it their all in that last point and that match. I was smiling internally even with the loss.

Be sure to check out Kurrite Photography at https://www.kurrite.com/ and on IG at kurrite_photography

The next 2 hours were a roller coaster. There were some outside factors that may have “iced” our flow. But anyone who looks at outside factors like that and says that’s why we lost is a loser. You have to perform and execute no matter what. By the way, none of my guys let that stuff get them. This was me analyzing as I have a tendency to do. This is paintball. And AC Diesel came to play just like we did against our other 3 opponents. We knew what they wanted to do and we let them do it. We missed shots, played sloppy/loose, and the guys knew it. Hats off to Mark Johnson and his crew. But that is the difference at this level… consistency is key. I remember shaking hands with Diesel and saying to them, “Thank you for the education. Thank you for the lesson.” And I genuinely meant it. My guys are better for it.

Summation of the first event, we played well but we have a long way to go if we want to hang with the teams in this division. There are approximately 200 players who get to play at this level and we deserve to be among them. Yes, we had a good debut but we are not resting. We are learning. And we will continue to learn.

We set 4 goals headed into this event:

  1. Win a point
  2. Connect points (win two points back to back)
  3. Win a match
  4. Don’t get last

We succeeded in meeting all 4 goals at this first event. For that I am thankful and pleased. But there is more to do. More goals need to be added on top of those 4. These 4 will go with us the rest of the season. They won’t change. But goals 5 and 6 will.

A good friend of mine summed up the New Orleans Hurricanes pro debut in a rather succinct and profound way. He said, “You guys ate from every buffet table. You got a 6-0. You got 6-0’d. In bad weather conditions. Got in a close back and forth match against a top team (Impact). And got to play the Russians.”

I want to take a moment and thank Jared Lackey of Tampa Bay Damage (Formerly of Carolina Crisis). John Dresser of JT let me know that he was the one who designed our new jerseys. The jerseys are fire Jared. Thank you.

I want to thank Tim Land of Gi Sportz for taking good care of us at the paint truck. I am, for lack of a better word, a paint snob. Tim gets it. Thank you Tim. You are the man.

I want to thank another Tim but I don’t know his last name. Tim the Tech guy from Planet Eclipse. Dude was right there with us in the pits helping. He was polite, professional, and johnny on the spot. Sure, he is probably in the pits for all the Eclipse teams but it just felt good having him there. Dude was genuine and we appreciated it. If any of you reading this know his name, shoot it to me in a DM so I can contact him.

Shout out to Walker Gautsche from Carbon. Dude is always smiling and is just a pleasant person to be around. Hooked us up with our gear and we appreciate it!

I didn’t get to hang with any of the Virtue crew but thank you too! The hoppers performed flawlessly.

Thanks to Matty Marshal and Rich Telford for the respect. It is greatly appreciated. And a quick shout out to Mike Hinman for the support and after event advice.

Thank you to Matt Engles for making the old man feel like he belongs and to Mikey Candaleria for being a cool cat. A special thanks to George Fava – dude is legit professional and a pleasure to be around.

Thank you to the NXL for a well run event.

Before I close this out, I want to say something to our friends, family, and fans… Thank you for all the love and support. It was overwhelming and we want you to know we will continue to try and do you proud. We are truly blessed to have you all. More to come, we promise.

Be water my friends.