Failure is a harsh mistress. One that, if you aren’t careful, will continue to show up at inopportune times. Especially in the world of professional paintball. You’re only as good as your last performance and after our 2nd place Las Vegas event, where the team gave the PB world a glimpse of what we can do when we execute, the New Orleans Hurricanes have consistently fallen short of our capabilities. Especially on the goals front set by the team at the beginning of the season. We didn’t meet a single set for this season after the first event. But sometimes, we can get so focused on winning, that we fail to recognize the lessons learned from the losses. It is said that failure can improve resilience, incite innovation, and even generate creativity that may not have occurred otherwise. And I thought that’s what we accomplished in preparation for this event. That being said, you better have resilience if you continue to under perform and play like we have. The lessons may start to get old and finding that tenacity, tapping into that “dog” in you, can start to become difficult. Well, not really… not if you are a true “dog” … a real warrior. And my guys are the real deal. But something is wrong. And we have to fix it.
Disappointed doesn’t seem to have the full connotation or essence of what I am trying to convey regarding my guy’s performance (and mine) at this year’s World Cup. This is now the third year in a row that we have gone 1-3 at the final event of the year, losing matches we should have won. We knew how to play this field. We knew the keys to the kingdom so to speak. We knew the set ups, we knew best where to close from and how, we knew where to push, where to create pressure, had good adjustments planned and prepped. We had good understandings of read offense and our opponent’s stack. We just simply failed to execute after the buzzer. We weren’t ourselves and frankly we haven’t been since Atlantic City.
And that has to rest on my shoulders. That’s where I failed. With most of your top teams in professional paintball, paintball is the priority. This is not the case with my Canes. Paintball is a passion. The priority is our families and jobs. Since going pro 3 years ago, we knew it would be tough and that we were in for tremendous difficulty if we wanted to be competitive and relevant in this league. So, my job was to figure out how to be competitive and relevant with limited time and assets. My job was not just to help them prepare, but to draw that great performance out of them… Each member of this team had a point at World Cup this year. Unfortunately, it isn’t individual performance that makes the dream work in this sport. It has to be a team effort, which I have always felt was our strength. And we were just discombobulated. As the leader, I take accountability for not having the words and/or wisdom to draw better performance out of my guys. This season is going to haunt us, I’m sure.
VS Brooklyn Bears
Point 1 – We knew the bears would play a similar match to us. I felt between the two squads there would be aggression on all three fronts of the field but that we would win the day with guns on the break and better comms. And it looked like I was right in point one. Even though Drew Bell was team killed off the rip by getting shot in the foot by a teammate, we shot the Bears’ snake runner on the break with our pocket shooters. Britt Simpson took ground d-side and Nic Ripple was in the snake 50 by himself all within 15 seconds. Daniel held the Bears out of the snake, Stuart spread behind Britt. We are in excellent field position. I am smiling in the pit because this is the set up we want (granted I wanted that 5th body as force multiplier but…still). I knew we were going to win the point. But then things start to deteriorate. Nic picks another body off but we lost Britt. We are now 33 and this field has turned into an island drill. Nic got dinked making it a 2 on 3 but Stuart Ridgel steps up dorito side and peels another off. 2 on 2 now after we had blown the advantage. Daniel Camp zones up and sure enough catches the Bear’s dorito side making it a 2 on 1 with the snake corner the only body left.
It was the first point so I wasn’t concerned. First point jitters kind of stuff maybe. Nothing prepared me for the continuous drop off in performance the rest of the match. 1-0 Hurricanes
Points 2- Should have been a 4 on 2 favor to us mid-point. We bounced three of them this point. However, the Bear’s paint did not bounce when they had their shots. 1-1 Tied
Point 3 – We won the break shooting the Bears snake runner but we let them fill out. We were once again in position to close out the point and win. We had the snake side stacked, and I’m ready for Nic to go do the guy in front of him. Instead, he retreated and got dinked out. Stu and Sakaguchi trade in the snake, so now both teams had 2 bodies dorito way, and one body each in the snake. Aaron Pate won the snake war decisively! Again, I’m thinking to myself, great job, we’re gucci. But then he got picked up by either one of the greatest or luckiest shots from the dorito 2 retreating back to home… it ends up in a one on one with Drew Bell. I felt good about the odds but… no. 1-2 Bears
Point 4 – Bears win the breakout, we are down bodies and time is low. I concede. 1-3 Bears
Point 5-7 Bears play paintball and we forget how. The end. 1-6 Bears
*Point 8 – We got a major in the point before. Bears are on the power play 5 on 3 off the break. We hold.
Big wake up call. We had now put ourselves in a precarious situation and it was just the first match. No worries. Stay positive, understand the mistakes, get it together. Absolutely no reason we shouldn’t and couldn’t win out.
VS Ronholt Dynamite
Ronholt are a Norwegian team and I really like those guys. But we needed to hang it on them, so we set out to do that. They were predictable, not the best laners, and I knew we were better gun fighters . They normally have 4 weeks on a layout so I felt confident they weren’t as prepared as they would be for an event in Europe. We knew what they were doing, we didn’t need to adjust anything to beat them.
Point 1 – we went aggressive and win in 45 seconds. 1-0 Hurricanes
Point 2 – same thing but it slowed down a bit. Pate shot the first body, someone shot Dynamite’s snake, then Pate shot the rest. Pate gets a 4 pack and should be in the running for Prelim move of the event. 2-0 Hurricanes
Point 3 – Dynamite found there guns on the break but we still should have won the point. 2-1 Hurricanes
Point 4 – we won the breakout, made our closing spots, clean close. We are on our way to do what we needed to do to erase the first match. Or so I thought. 3-1 Hurricanes
Point 5 – I got a little concerned on this point. It took us way too long to close this point out, especially since we knew the situation and where they were. I feel our dorito side should have been in the fight sooner. Searight should have felt comfortable coming to Dynamite’s side as none of the three were in position to slow his progress. Dynamites mini wall can’t go anywhere. Drew Bell has to be a little more careful than Searight as he had to push the S2 in before he can go but once through, it should have been over. I feel like we should have won that point with at least 7 minutes or just under still on the clock. 4-1 Hurricanes
Point 6 – One player had to rush to the box and is pulled for leaving early… he wasn’t shot. That’s on me. I had no idea there was a gun issue and frankly, there shouldn’t have been. Next body looks into a ball… d side was blown. Its 5 on 3, Dynamite’s advantage but Nic got to the 50 snake, and peels not one, not two, but three bodies off before he dies. He did everything he could to save the point. This left us in a 2 on 2. Unfortunately, my two last bodies didn’t know where the two bodies were and it costs us. Blind shot on Drew Bell costs him his body. Trade at the end with Daniel Camp in the snake and Dynamite is on the board again. 4-2 Hurricanes.
Point 7 – We win the break and they got a penalty I think. They concede with 2 and a half minutes left. We needed to win by 5 just to get back to 0. So we need to get on the board in about 1 minute 15 seconds or so average to make me happy. That would not be the case. 5-2 Hurricanes
Point 8 – We just couldn’t stay alive. I don’t know what was going on… 5-3 Hurricanes
Point 9 – We stay alive but Searight drew a minor. The “hit” on his pack was obviously rub from one of the bunkers but it is what it is…. We burn the clock. Game. We did not accomplish our goal to win by at least 5. This would haunt us. Match should have been 6-1.
VS AC Diesel
We scouted Diesel and were ready for them (or so we thought). We knew they liked to use the pocket, and press the snake action.
Point 1 – They break as we anticipated but they still win it. 4 on 5 advantage them but we beat them to the snake. We bait Godlman into a gun in the snake making it a 4-4. However, we lost Dorito containment and got sloppy in our bunkers. Cortez makes Britt pay for it. While that was happening, Nic kills the god and was on their side of the snake. Cortex shoots Pate, Nic has no idea what was going on, they hit the buzzer. We shouldn’t have lost that point. 1-0 Diesel.
Point 2 – I wanedt to use the center on them because I had a sense they would go snake corner and weak d side. They did. Unfortunately, they made their first shot on Pate count. While that was happening, Britt had made it to Diesel’s side of the field. But he decided to over gunfight. We were just giving them bodies. We had fed the snake so I decide to give it some time to see if we can eek one out. Sure enough Drew Bell makes a moving cross field shot from the D side on Mouse in the snake! He then shoots the D side one! We have now evened the body count up 3 on 3. Daniel Camp shoots the D side 2 cross field! There we go!… But Clint Johnson sneaks one in on Drew. It’s a 2 on 2 and my guys later reported they didn’t know where Clint was… we dropped the ball again. 2-0 Diesel.
Pt 3 – The next point was a cluster. Get this, they shoot Camp on the break but the ref next to the one calling Daniel out, thinks the other ref is talking about Nic! That’s right, Nic was clean but the ref kept yelling at him to get out so he did. So Diesel gets a free one thanks to a ref not just taking a beat to understand. We got one back and Britt is on their side of the field in their Doritos. He missed his first shot and now they know he’s there. But Pate picks up Clint Johnson. It’s now a 3 on 3 again. A minute goes by, Pate feeds the snake but then… both Drew Bell and Britt Simpson come walking off. I don’t know how. It’s a 3 on 1 so I concede the point. 3-0 Diesel
Pt 4- We were pretty confident they would spread and they do save for the 1 dorito side who went a little further than we thought. Drew Bell asks for a paint check on his back. The ref called him clean. As he progressed up the field another ref found the hit the first one missed. Penalty… I had to concede. 4-0 Diesel
Pt 5 – we finally play hurricane paintball 4-1 Diesel. Too little too late. Game.
VS Aftershock
We scouted shock and had a great understanding of their game plan. They literally had one play they ran 80% of the time with two guns up and 3 heads down running. We would try and take advantage of that.
Point 1 – Well, those two guns up were good. 1-0 Afteshock.
Point 2- Same. Except this time, we shot two of theirs shortly after. 2 on 3 but my two are Drew Bell and Searight, so I let this go a bit. Drew gets in the snake, shoots Hosky, Searight shoots Cory Hall! Drew put a ball on Thomas Kim’s neck, we all saw it from the pit. The ref calls him clean. Searight should have shot him as the ref was checking him. Anyway, one on one, Thomas Kim wins it. 2-0 Aftershock’
Point 3 – 4 on 4 break which quickly became a 4 on 2, Aftershock advantage… I concede. 3-0 Aftershock
Point 4 – I have officially left stoic demeanor and am now in putting my foot up everyone’s butt demeanor. We know what they will do and want to do. If we can live past the break, quit giving our bodies away, we will beat them! We shoot two on the break (finally), Arod threw his body away, 3 on 1 advantage us. We were on the board finally playing the way we knew how to. 3-1 Aftershock.
Pt 5 – We lost the break but get the advantage snake side when Danimal took Hosky off the board. Searight pressed the issue dorito way as well and he eventually worked his way to their side. He shot their god, they send a body to get him, that dude got diced, we close out. Another point where we are looking like ourselves! 3-2 Aftershock
Pt 6 – We know they will go back line and we decide to go short snake way (snake way shooter was hot). The read was right and we shot their 1 dorito way and their 2 snake way who drew a minor. Corey shot Britt but Nic caught Corey, 4 on 1 advantage us. I don’t think we knew about the minor and were looking for a second body. At the very least, this issue was better than the issues we had been having. Good close considering. And a third point in a row where we played to our potential. 3-3 Tied
Pt 7 – We know they will do their standard break out. Two at home, one body short dorito way, god and snake corner. They did. We missed our shots though. Both teams for the first time this match are 5 on 5. Arod missed his shot on Daniel who is on their side of the snake but we didn’t. Arod takes the walk. We shoot Parrish D side, and I remember thinking, it is 5 on 3 with just over two minutes. We got this. I’m thinking Daniel will launch and stab out Hosky. Instead Hosky went highway. Then a strange thing happened… a ref throws a minor on my player who asked “whats on his head?” Hosky had a BUNCH of paint on his head and there did seem an instance where it looked like he took a lick in the snake. We were going to win this point and potentially the game… but a ref had inserted himself into the match, on a talking penalty no less. Oh well. Control what you can control. I have to concede the point with a minute forty left. 4-3 Aftershock
Pt 8 – Arod gets away with one this point. We watched him get shot from the pit. He was hit, he realized it, and launched before a ref could get there. Stu points at Arod asking for the penalty and they throw a penalty on us for pointing… pointing everyone. Nic trades in the snake making it a 2 on 2. But Drew Bell and Danimal pinch the home. Drew trades with Parrish. Daniel waits to hit the buzzer until about 6 seconds. 4-4 Tie.
Overtime – Aftershock takes the win after we lose the break and team kill one of our guys.
So what did we learn here? We have learned that you have to be at your best every moment of every point of every match. You better hit your off the break shots like you were at practice. And you better close cleaner by checking in and realizing your down count because there was probably a guy doing a job… and if he isn’t there anymore doing said job, that is bad… more so when you don’t know it. The Canes are known for two things – guns on the break, and disciplined team work. We had neither at this event.
The New Orleans Hurricanes started this season off well with a 2nd place finish in Vegas. We had two goals this season, neither of which we met after Vegas. Make every Sunday and win an event. I have a lot more to say on this and maybe I will write another blog later this month to cover all of it.
But first…
Seneca taught that “Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.” And he is absolutely right. But I’m not a perfect stoic yet.
…But I am always trying. With that in mind, I will avoid commenting on a “distraction” that reared its ugly head the day prior to the event. Now to work on that Christian value of mine regarding forgiveness, too. That one will be tough. To the “source” that fed the lie? Pray I don’t find you.
The rumor of our demise is greatly exaggerated. We have work to do.
After starting the season off with a 2nd place finish in Vegas, I find myself sitting down to write about yet another disappointing and subpar performance by the Hurricanes. This marks our third event where we went 2-2 and missed Sunday. We are now 11 and 8 on the season (61-68 for/against). If you had asked me if we would be in this position after Vegas, I would have confidently and perhaps with a little defiance, stated no. One of the goals we set for this season was to win an event. We have missed that goal so far. Since Vegas, we haven’t hit one of our goals set for the season, one of which was continuous Sunday appearances.
I think we have proven we are adaptable and can play any game, whether it is fast and bloody, slow and disciplined, or a mix of both. We are a team that beats you with team paintball. Our process and successes have been from our ability to process data as a team and play selflessly. When we have the information, when we can connect on the layout, we are very dangerous. However, the layouts as of late have proven that you must be comfortable going forward without all the data and in some cases, none. It’s about risk taking and our processes have been about risk mitigation. Breaking that mentality we have ingrained in ourselves to punch and counter punch based off data has been difficult to say the least. Our processing speed and read offense has always been data based… if A then B… If B then C…. that has not been the case as of late. And that’s on me. Our system was good enough to get us to the pro division. It was good enough the first two years to keep us competitive and a threat. It was good enough for Vegas. But good enough isn’t good enough anymore. It is time to adjust the system. To sum this event up, we knew how to play this field. We were ready and the game plans were solid. The issue was simply a lack of consistent execution. My ones applied pressure but were just getting “dinked” out and my twos were inconsistent on when to apply additional pressure and follow up. Don’t get me wrong, my guys played some good paintball… some of the time. The inconsistency bug has struck us again. That falls on me. Time to rework and readjust the system.
Vs Ironmen
The first point we wanted to attack and attack hard, to make a statement. And we did. We went aggressive D side with a relentless push from Britt Simpson with a plan for Stuart Ridgel to follow up quickly and apply pressure. We would get Nic Riippel in the snake as well to show we were coming from both sides. We lose Stu on the break but Drew Bell knows the drill and quickly plugs the hole d-side. Britt trades and on the Chaos, Drew takes the Ironmen’s side of the field. I feel Britt could have got two but I will take his aggression just as well. Drew peels one but misses his second opportunity on a kill. Drew catches a penalty as he gets a skimmer pack hit. This leaves Nic in the ironmen’s side of the snake in a 3 on 1… 0-1 Ironmen.
We showed we would attack and be a threat on both sides the first point so I wanted to show we could do that AND be a threat in the center as well. Stu just missed his shot on Ironmen’s snake player who ends up shooting Mike Brown cross field in our dorito side. Drew Bell quickly filled the gap though and with Justin Bailey containing, was able to mount a second offensive on that side. Drew crosses onto the Ironmen’s side and shoots snake corner, snake 2, and their home. He them went to trade (unnecessary but I dug it). At this point, Daniel Camp is on the Ironmen’s side of the field snake side and we still have Stu and Bailey to close out, which they did. 1-1 Tied
Point three, I felt we were in the driver seat off the rip. We were the aggressor again and had the snake 3, snake corner for support, and the dorito 50. We were in better position and I felt confident we were going to take the point. Daniel Camp gets out of snake corner to support Britt Simspon in the snake 3 so if there is a trade, we don’t lose the ground. I felt we should have been out of that can dorito side to support Nic who was in the dorito 50 way sooner. Especially since Ironmen’s snake was applying no pressure. We got out to the first dorito though and I once again, felt confident. Britt got into the Ironmen’s side of the snake which made me doubly happy… I thought he is going to go trade eventually and then Daniel will be in position unseen. Instead, Britt got picked off by a bounce shot…and the Ironmen got out of the snake corner and join their own two man team in there. Then Stuart Ridgel got caught. We are now in a 5 on 3. Nic got peeled next. 5 on 2. Daniel makes a move, got 1 but…4 on 1 and I want the time. Conceed. 1-2 Ironmen
This next point was difficult for me to watch. We knew what has to happen on this field. We had to be first, create pressure, and get our twos in the game to clean up. I called the play knowing we had made a small mistake with point one. Both teams went aggressive. We were in the snake and first to the corner. They were first out in dorito 2 and 3 but we were first into the dorito 50. Nic got to the snake 50 and eliminates dorito 3 for Ironmen. Daniel Camp fed the snake again behind Nic to be gain ground and be a force multiplier. Drew Bell (Home) and Stuart Ridgle (dorito can) now had some freedom to force multiply and increase pressure. We were now in complete control of the field. But we lost Britt out of the dorito 50… Although, at the same time Nic had improved his position to Ironmen’s snake side and I am positive he landed his shot… ref didn’t see anything though…Omara moved to snake 3 and shoots Nic… I feel like Nic needed to stay posted that way with Drew Bell now in the snake side center wedge on overwatch. Stu was at dorito 50 but repositioned back… not sure that was the play. Camp gets into Nic’s former spot and missed the shot on Omara. Had this landed, Stu could have taken ground, eliminated home, and we could have closed tieing the game. Time had dwindled to a point where we were committed as there was just about a minute left. The personnel I had out there I trust to make it happen. When Drew went to center, I thought, okay… wait… major penalty. The rest is history. Two opportunities squandered. 3-1 Ironmen.
Vs Xtreme
We had scouted Xtreme well and felt confident in our game plan. We would emphasize dorito guns, pressure their box to not allow them free reign back there, and concede/contain snake. This paid dividends on the first point as we shot two and they got a penalty. Jeri is left alone in a 5 on 1. He gets one but we closde him out. He would get his later though. 1-0 Canes
We went with a designed play similar to the first but with one adjustment. Stu would shoot his shot, then reposition out to dorito side to support Britt’s dorito push and filter Drew Bell up to where Stu was showing (Dorito brick). Nic and Daniel would contain and when given the opportunity feed to have snake presence. We landed our shot dorito way and landed a second which causes Xtreme to draw a penalty. D side is blown for Xtreme and we had position. Interestingly enough, we scored a shot on Jeri too. 5 on 2. Britt crawled to their dorito side, got the cross field elimination, and Xtreme concedes. 2-0 Canes
We didn’t come off the gas. We got Britt into dorito 3 to wrap for any center presence. We got Nic into the snake 2. We also got our two snake way out quickly. Zone control snake side is on point as we shot snake corner and the fill. 5 on 3 advantage us. We were in control, I anticipated Xtreme to concede when one more body droped. Then it happens. I actually saw it coming… ask anyone in the pits. I say out loud, “We have no snake containment! Holy crap…somebody notice.” A simple statement from my 3 or 2 snake way changes this (“I got this, you get that”). Jeri Caro takes the risk at the right time with the right seam and makes us pay. I hope Jeri got the $500. 2-1 Canes
After a conversation about the last point, we were back on task for the next. We were winning the breakout and I didn’t see a need to make any radical adjustments. They shot Daniel on the break but we took Jeri off the board as well. Drew Bell filtered snake way since Nic is alone and Xtreme has a body in there with Nic. Xtreme was actually in better field position here but our spread was set so that we could absorb a push and counter. Once Drew got out to the corner, he could push Nic forward. Stuart began to press the issue dorito side since Xtreme seemed hesitant over there. Mike Brown was in reserve behind Stu. My guys are communicating well so I felt good about them not repeating mistakes. The point began to drag on, again we are in position to absorb knowing Xtreme has to come being down 1. Mike Brown let Nic know about Canter in the 50 snake and Nic lands his shot. Kraft makes a good move but Nic canceled him out with a trade. Stu got caught but Drew drops the hammer snake way knowing he had the side to himself. Absorption… counter. 3-1 Canes
We felt confident Xtreme would shift their emphasis to the center in some manner. Unfortunately, we missed our shot and lost the first body but get one back when Drew Bell shoots Jeri again. Stuart makes a great fill outside dorito way and got the kill on the dorito side brick. Drew took the opportunity to fill underneath Stu. Josh Taylor for Xtreme went offensive and took the 50 dorito but Drew knew he has to go and sacrifices himself to get him Taylor off the board. Kraft came through the center next and Daniel was in the snake 2 but on the wire. Nic was telling him but I don’t think Daniel heard him. Fortunately, Nic squeezes a ball in on him giving us a 3 on 1 advantage. We didn’t know the count but luckily Daniel picks up on the last body (Canter) who had left the snake and went into the center. Stu drops leaving us in a 2 on 1…Nic spread luckily, Daniel traded and we get the last point. 4-1 Canes.
I’m thinking about spread now… so we had to study our opponents well heading into the next day of competition. Our opportunity would come with Revo who seemed to struggle with their first two matches. And based off scouting of the Legion, they were predictable. But there is a difference between knowing what a team will do and executing the game plan to stop it.
Vs Revo
We were unable to watch tape the night before to reassess our own matches much less watch our next day opponents as the webcast had issues with uploads. So we studied our paper scouting sheets and developed what I thought would be the best approach to Revo.
The first point Revo shot 4 of my 5 players on the break. Ever the optimist, I let Justin Bailey know that he hit his shot on the snake corner runner. 0-1 Revo.
I didn’t think we needed to do anything different, just get out alive. We did but we don’t completely when Bailey gets clipped repositioning to snake corner. We were first to the dorito 50 with Britt who clipped out Revo’s snake corner, but they took Daniel Camp out of snake 2 just before. 4 on 3 advantage Revo but Drew Bell got into the snake undetected. And with Britt and Stu applying pressure D side, he got the drop on both Revo players in the snake before the dorito side for Revo gets a ball on him. We were now in a 2 on 2 with both teams dorito side. Stu slipped out of the doritos into the center. Unfortunately, he does the jump- jump- jump maneuver and it cost him. We get a gift from the PB gods though as a Revo player decides to leave the safety of his bunker and into Britt’s gun and Brit wins the next gun fight. Individual play and mistakes by Revo saved the point for us. 1-1 Tied
Revo wasn’t showing me anything spectacular and after two points I’m not seeing any adjustments from previous data we had. We spread the field and pushed Britt into the Dorito side snake on the rip. Our guns paid off and we have the ground in a 5 on 2. Revo conceded which made me happy because I want to play points for margin. About 10 and a half minutes left on the clock. 2-1 Canes
I decided to push the snake side now as well as doritos. Both my ones made it in and once again Britt was first to the 50 dorito wedge. Revo was in front of our pits and I watch as the first snake player goes in and Stuart dropped a ball in on him from home. They feed the snake again from snake corner and I again watch Stu put a ball in the same zone which caught the player’s foot. So did the ref. Running ref finds the hit and it’s a minor. 4 on 2 our advantage and we closed out clean. 3-1 Canes
Revo hasn’t shown much aggression once they made it out wide dorito side. We felt that would change as this is when they would probably push it or try to slow ours down with a dorito center brick. We spread and decide to try and use the god to check off inside. We get a body on the break and we knew that they were already down 20% with the dorito brick waiting on a shot. We knew they made the snake though so Drew tries to use a shot to contain. Daniel had direction that if the shot didn’t pay off, get in the snake and go to work. He did just as Drew lands his shot on Revo’s snake player. We just had to wrap and trap now which should allow Daniel to go all the way. Revo tried to fill and we picked him off. Stu launched and dropped the hammer on Revo’s center. Drrw traded with last body. 4-1 Canes
Revo attempted to flip the script and take a page from our book going straight to dorito snake and snake on the break. They also shot Dnaiel on the break. Stu got caught trying to fill out. 5 on 3 but Nic took Revo’s player out who had crawled to our side of the snake. I’m thinking okay, we Gucci… then Nic got clipped and I saw a flag go up on our side of the field dorito side… 4-2 Canes
Revo saw success with their last play and knew they have to press the pace. So, I wanted to take the dorito out of the equation and get in the snake. Stu lands his shot on Revo’s dorito attacker and Britt takes the Dorito snake. Daniel shot his mirror in snake side Aztec on the break. At the same time, Nic made the snake, wraps on the Revo home player who was playing too tall. Stu launched forward looking cross field for the snake that Daniel called, finds him, then turns just in time to catch Revos 2nd attacker Dorito side to trade. 5-2 Canes
I wanted to get guns up so we spread the back. It worked out well as we shoot the snake corner and the dorito 3. This also helped us with visual acuity so we knew where the bodies were. Stu launched through the center as we peeled off their bodies from snake Aztec and home allowing Stu to snag Benny Carrol’s back. 6-2 Canes.
To say I was happy with how the match had gone up until this point would be an understatement. I was pleased with how we had come back into form the last couple of points. We were imposing our will and I was confident we had seen all that Revo had. Just over 5 minutes left with a 4 point lead. My hopes for a high margin were being met.
But it can never be that easy… not in this division and certainly not this year… We were now in X-ball and without going into all the detail, let me sum up the next 4 points. The first point comes down to a 3v3 but we fail to know the situation and got dinked out. The next point, we won the break but end up in another 3v3 and don’t know the situation and get dinked out but bring it back to a 2v2 thanks to Daniel Camp. However, he missed a cross field shot and then got caught retreating leaving Nic in a 2v1. Nic did a great job getting out to the dorito side which bought him some time from the snake player. But it isn’t enough. Revo won the break on the next point and then its just a charlie foxtrot… I told the guys “Its time to be among them” and we send Stu up the gut and we win the point. It’s 7-5 now with just under a minute left. We shot two quickly making it a 5 on 3 and I’m thinking, “yes, get me that last point”. But no… dink, dink, dink… 7-6 Canes.
Vs Red Legion
We have played the Legion 6 times now in our professional career. The first time we met was in our pro debut event in 2022 at the Sunshine State Major. After going down 6-1 and on the verge of being mercied, we clawed back making it a 6-4 match with 3:35 left on the clock. Plenty of time to come back to tie. We go up 4 on 3, had them trapped, but didn’t press the d side attack quick enough on the last point.
We would pull them again our first year at the Windy City Open. We would go down again early on 4-0 with just under 9 minutes left if I recall. We came back and scored 4 points unanswered points with Aaron Pate hitting the buzzer with a few seconds left to take us into overtime. We would win in overtime 5 to 4. We were the ONLY undefeated pro team out of the prelims that event and it would be our first top 5 finish.
We would meet them the following year at the 2023 Lone Star Open. They would be our only loss in the Prelims with a grinder of a match 3-1. The score does not denote how close that knife fight was.
We would pull them at our disastrous 2023 World Cup. Ironically, they would be our ONLY win that event as we would edge them out 5 to 3. Though, if we are being honest, penalties killed them, otherwise they would have most certainly won.
We would pull them at the Atlantic City Major of this year where they just seemed indomitable. And yes, the put us away 8-2. We could have made Sunday if we had kept it close but we didn’t. We died on our swords trying to play their game.
And here we were about to face them again. We had done the math and we knew if we kept it close with Legion, we would be on to Sunday. We needed to stay within three… We had also done our home work on Legion and felt confident in the game-plan. We knew where they wanted to be on the field and we knew where we needed to be to intercept them. But you have to hit your shots. The first 6 minutes in, I felt good about where we were. That would not end up being the case. We would be mercied again by this team who has essentially evolved the game of old into a new statistical fast attack. You want to beat the legion? You have to hit your shots. We had opportunities and we let them slip through our grasp. Legion 8-2… again.
As we head into cup, we have our worked cut out for us. We are currently ranked 8th (My goal was to be higher than that at this point) and we have a hell of a draw. Heck, no draw is easy anymore. We have one final goal for the season that MUST be met and that is to actually do well at World Cup for once in the pro division (our last two were disasters). It will take a lot of work, a lot of commitment, a lot of understanding, and a whole hell of a lot of heart.
But if I know my guys, we are up for it. Roll Canes.
Be water my friends.
P.S. Good to see our friend Grayson up and about, inspiring all of us to never give up! #fightlikegrayson
The key to surviving and remaining relevant in Major League Paintball’s professional division (in any division really) is not a team’s depth of roster, funding or any myriad of things… sure, these aspects certainly lend to successes. But the real key, in my opinion, is a team’s ability to adapt. Adaptability is the difference between success and failure. One could go as far as to take the stance of British writer, Max McKeown that “All failure is the failure to adapt; all success is successful adaptation.”
The New Orleans Hurricanes, whom I truly believe are one of the most adaptable teams in paintball, did not adapt well at this event. Which is strange since I also believe that one of our strengths as a team is our collective ability to recognize and see aspects of layouts rather well. That, and we had actually worked on a form of adaptation the weekend before in preparation for the blind layout. We knew how to play this layout. We knew what the optimum set ups were. We were in good position several times in all four matches and yet failed to follow through on execution or, in some instances, recognize the opportunities we had just created. This marked our second missed Sunday out of three so far this season… not where we saw ourselves at this point in our third year as pros.
“Our identities are always changing and growing, they’re not meant to be pinned down. Our histories are never all good or all bad, and running from the past is the surest way to be defined by it. That’s when it owns us. The key is bringing light to the darkness – developing awareness and understanding.”
Vs Blastcamp
We respect Blastcamp and their approach to the game. We wanted to really set a tone with this match, leverage our creativity as well as our roster. That was the plan with the first play call. Go big, be first outside, signal a balanced approach on the box when we had no plan to do so, use some misdirection… you know, the usual. Our guns on the break were stellar and positioned well just in case they decided to go big too (which they did), and the misdirection was unnecessary as we win the point in approximately 20 seconds. Great read by Jacob Searight to dunk the missile Blastcamp sent to fifty Dorito. 1-0 Canes
Blastcamp answered well with solid guns of their own shooting two of us off the snake side. We took one of theirs off the D side and immediately took ground in an effort to turn the field. On this layout, a body advantage early was a big deal, so in turn, you had to take advantage and create opportunity quickly. Daniel Camp understood he had to shut down that 50 snake wrap while Searight and Drew pressed the action D side. Valiant effort from my players but Blastcamp took ground, probed the middle, found the opening, and closed out. A 3 minute 40 second point. 1-1 Tied
We felt comfortable attacking the wides again getting guns up in the center. We got the kill but Drew Bell got caught out in the open. Had he committed earlier to going forward, he more than likely would have been fine. Even count, four on four. We had good position in snake and wide dorito way with Blastcamp essentially pocketed. But we allowed Blastcamp to take snake and filter into a three man operation that way. Not optimum as my two man operation dorito way with Mike Brown and Justin Bailey now had to contend with two cross field shots. The key would be eliminating Dorito side can. Blastcamp repositioned further into snake side which boded ill but we did picked up the D side can kill. This meant that Blastcamp’s remaining assets had to respect that the side was blown. They decided to run though, Danimal diced him up on over-watch before he got to Pate but no penalty. Danimal went tall, caught another and then commited forward getting the last Blastcamp player. Our push close should have come from D side but it still worked out. Quick concession from Blastcamp. A two and half minute point. 2-1 Canes
Data from my guys showed a comfort staying wide and maybe pushing the issue a little further D side. We made our spots, five on five paintball. My guys all made secondaries and were looking good. Searight pressed the action D side. Point drug on as both teams were zoned up and Blastcamp developed that three body set up snake way. I felt that, with Searight inside and Daniel inside, Pate could have been a bit more proactive here, especially since we had Bailey in the snake side aztec controlling the outside of the 50 snake brick. We eliminated their D side can just before Blastcamp began probing the center in order to take Daniel off the field. They traded. Four on three advantage us. We were in good position, had the lead, and the clock was burning. We had this one and should have extended the lead. That was when things got weird. We got a minor because someone somehow sensed or complained that Daniel’s gun was hot. So they checked his gun… not with the chronograph he chrono’ed onto the field with… no, with the other pit’s chrono. He shot hot so we got a penalty and they pulled Pate out of the snake. This changed the strength of our positioning and improved Blastcamps. They closed the point but not before Justin Bailey almost turned the point around getting 2 of the 3 remaining. 2-2 Tied
We pressed the wides again since it hadn’t been looking like it could be stopped but they did end up shooting our D side one and took the 50 snake quick. It boded ill as Daniel improved his position to snake wedge but lost his first engagement. Pate did damage control by slipping out to snake corner. Clock was under 3 minutes and we were in a 3 on 5 disadvantage scenario. I stood close to the concession button waiting to see my guys try something… I decided I would give them 1 minute. Drew Bell made it out to dorito corner and I breathed a little better but was still not happy. When Stuart filled to the can though, I got real nervous. I thought for sure he would have filled towards Pate. As soon as Pate died, I conceded. 3-2 BlastCamp
I kicked myself just a little for not conceding the point a little earlier but I always trust my guys. So now we had to develop a super fast play. There was no doubt they would want to just make their bunkers, lock up access, and try to hold on for 71 seconds. With that in mind, we knew we needed to take an opportunity early, especially since they hadn’t shown good guns D side. Knowing they wanted to protect the wides and would look for a snake side push, I opted for a different approach with my guy’s buy in. We were going to press the D side action. We would risk one body D side to draw the guns and plan to filter another underneath. We would get heavy guns up, try to get key eliminations on the break, then read into our secondaries. We took a timeout to make sure we were all on the same page and understood what needed to happen on the reads. The point started and we got one elimination, made the doritos, filtered a second body underneath dorito way as the guns went wide, and secondary into snake corner. Even after losing our rabbit D side, we succeeded in positioning Dorito way with Drew Bell and Stuart Ridgel executing well. Drew got the drop on two of them, one of which decided to play on drawing a penalty. Drew hit the buzzer early which I was fine with because I would like to use the time for two reasons… one, to let my guys work their lanes, and two, have a little more time to work on my play call with the team for the next point. 3-3 tied
For the overtime point, we knew what Blastcamp wanted. So we prepared a little rope a dope. I set Searight up D-side with the look to go big but his real goal was snake 50. We placed two guns dorito way and they paid off shooting Blastcamp’s one on that side. Searight got to his spot, trusted his over-watch from Pate, and we settled in to push the snake with a 3.5 man operation. Blastcamp committed on Searight, Pate on over-watch caught him, and the Blastcamp player tried to play on. Luckily he didn’t shoot his gun or it would have been a major instead of a minor. About the time the penalty was thrown, Danimal picked up another kill cross field on D side. We were in a 4 on 1 with just over two and a half minutes to close the point out. Canes win.
Vs Uprising
We were able to scout Uprising during their match against the Bears. We felt we should be winning the break and making it wide again. We had also determined we needed to secondary a little quicker. With that in mind, we headed into the first point shooting Uprising’s dorito one on the break and took quick secondaries out snake way. We also put a ball on their center aztec near snake wedge who drew the penalty. We were in a 5 on 2 situation but Uprising had the snake 50 who quickly wrapped and shot Mike Brown at the home. My guys had the kill count wrong, too. However, they didn’t rush, they figured it out but not before it became a 2 on 1. Hey, blind layout which we had played a whole 7 points on. I’m not going to be too critical… yet. 1-0 Canes
We kept going wide because, why not? They finally picked Pate up on the run and gun to snake corner but he took the home with him. Four on four but Uprising began pressing D side pretty aggressively. They essentially had one gun to beat who came off their zone by the way, so really no guns to beat. Snake 50 dropped Drew Bell in the D side can and then Britt Simpson in Dorito one. Its a matter of time for Daniel and Mike Brown. 1-1 Tied.
Uprising went pocket and we spread D side. They got crafty and used that D side “alley” to get into the D side wedge but not before shooting our D side one (Searight). Drew Bell knew we need that asset outside to keep them checked but got picked up on the fill. Mike Brown did make it out there, however. We picked up a kill making it even again but that lasted all of about 1 second as Pate and Daniel got shot. But Mike “Clutch” Brown shoots another. This means he was in a 2 on 1 advantage Uprising but Mike has faced greater odds before. Unfortunately, you can’t win all them and Uprising took the point. 2-1 Uprising.
Alright, back to basics. Get Nic Rippel in the snake, draw the gun out wide with a dorito runner and filter underneath D-side with Drew Bell. Leave Pate in reserve as overwatch with Nic. And that’s how it went. We shot their D-side can but Uprising seemed to panic a little with Nic in the snake. This allowed Searight to go offensive with Drew right behind him. Bailey swung out behind them as force multiplier knowing this was the window. Welcome to the meat grinder. 2-2 Tied.
It isn’t broke. Let’s go. But it was broke… kinda. Nic’s hopper decided to give him a problem. We were in great position. We had shot one of them on the break and had Dorito one, the forward D side aztec, the snake 50, snake side aztec on over-watch and home. But we allowed Uprising to take the snake and get a drop in on Drew. We got a body back giving us the 4 on 3 advantage. Uprising was in Dorito 2, snake side aztec and snake 2. We had Dorito 2, dorito can, snake side aztec, and 50 snake. We had Uprising’s snake 2 contained and their dorito contained. Not a lot we could do with their 3rd though. I was thinking Bailey would be able to get out of the can but he hunkered in and got small preserving his body. Uprising committed on Nic for a trade but a sloppy secondary follow up cost Uprising their second to last body. It’s a 3 on 1 and the clock was ticking (I believe it was 2:30 left at that point?) so, barring a catastrophe, I knew we were going to take the point. Whether my guys knew the count or not (I could tell they didn’t since they were still covering some zones that had NO ONE), I was just waiting for Uprising to concede. 20 seconds later, they did. 3-2 Canes.
Still plenty of time on the clock. We decided to pocket up and get guns up. We got one but they made snake 50 pretty quick. We knew they were going to go snake 50 and wanted the quick wrap . Nic actually shot the wrap, I know this because the Uprising player even asked for a check, and the ref called it “rub”. Stu heard the snake call and tried to get to that wedge to catch him napping. Unfortunately, the snake looked inside just at the right time, otherwise, great play. I remember thinking to myself, just get to the dorito one and this point will be fine. Mike Brown made it out there as if he heard me through telepathy. But then got shot almost immediately after… dang. Had he lived I feel this point would have gone longer or finished differently. Uprising closes well. 3-3 Tied.
We played the 10 second point and we decided, heck, let’s go for it. We got to the 50’s and that was about it. Time. Okay, into overtime.
I waited to call a time out after Uprising’s time out for two reasons. One to ensure we were good and comfortable with the play call (I sent Stu out to the box to ensure the five were good). The second reason was to play a small psychological game against Uprising’s 5 on the box. Unfortunately, neither really did much. We should have lost that point. But Aaron Pate and Daniel Camp put the team on their back and won a 5 on 2 with help from our opponent who kept throwing body after body at them with no coordinated effort or close. Nic got shot on the break, Pate and Daniel made their secondaries and Searight went a little offensive but past that, we just sort of stagnated…Uprising pressed with the body advantage and had moved the skirmish line to the 40 and 50… I started a decade of my Rosary I keep in my pocket at that point with about 2:30 left… This is when it all happened. Uprising shot Drew out of the can and their D side immediately launched to bunker Searight. The first one got picked up and the second got picked up as well! So, now it was a 3 on 2! Uprising’s snake player 50 launched and got roasted. 2 on 2! Daniel Camp caught one and Aaron Pate caught the other… holy smokes… my prayers were quite literally answered. Canes win.
Vs Bears
Britt Simpson wanted to go and sometimes you have to let him. And that’s what we did on this first point. He made his primary, read the paint and made dorito 3. We mixed it up a little getting Nic Ripple out to snake corner with Aaron Pate at home, Daniel Camp snake side forward aztec, and Drew Bell rounded it all out in the Dorito can. Pate struck first by scoring his shot on the snake side wedge route. Five on four advantage to us as we settled in for what would be the longest point of our event. Nic fed the snake easy enough as Bears weren’t in the best position to stop him. I was a little disappointed that we allowed the Bears to fill the snake as we had discussed using Drew on the cross to potential see/stop that. Daniel Camp fed up into the snake 50. At this point, I would have really liked Drew to get out behind Britt on the Dorito side. He had the opportunity early on whether to go lateral or to go forward and up into dorito wedge. However, once the Bears made the snake, that was going to be difficult… Daniel got picked up from the dorito one who had slipped out on us too (probably wouldn’t have happened if Drew had shifted earlier). I would have also liked to have seen Pate take snake 1. This would have given him a better perspective D side as well as given us an asset further forward if we lost ground there. Britt appeared to be the only one who got the memo and increased pressure by taking the 50 dorito. But that tandem line was now too long between him and Drew and that was frustrating. As we headed into the 7th minute of the point, I knew my guys are low on paint and something had to happen soon. Drew finally decided to take action but only because he was almost out of paint. He got pretty creative and I thought he was going to catch the Bear’s dorito 2 hopper. It didn’t happen and he got into their Dorito Wedge. I was happy for what, once again, seemed like, one second… as I watched Britt stand up after getting eliminated by the Bears snake. I don’t know who shot Drew… we went from having a 5 on 4 body advantage and position, to losing the point. I wanted that one back bad. Lots of squandered opportunities in a 10 minute point. I saw Nic trying to be proactive but Pate wasn’t. Had to keep time so I conceded the point. 1-0 Bears
I put the same line back out on the next point. There was nothing wrong with play call. It was execution so I wanted them to understand the mistakes and that I believed in them. Britt made his run and Drew got out behind him quickly this time. Nic hopped into the snake one quickly again as well. He ended up getting picked up cross field though. Pate didn’t hesitate and took the ground back. Britt did what he was supposed to do and attacked that dorito side harder. This allowed Drew to move as well as it created more pressure. I can’t blame Britt for getting shot here. He was trying. I said out loud in the pits, “they got 20 seconds to put something together”. They didn’t so I concede the point. 2-0 Bears
We had a come to Jesus talk after that point where I explained that the aggression looked great for the first bit of the point and then we just vegged out. Closing had never been a glaring issue with us but it was damn near blinding to watch at that point. So I lit a fire and explained we had to go. Now, we had no choice but to go. And go we did…finally. We got our guns up, got crafty D side, pressed the issue with our access points, lived behind our guns and won the point in 25 seconds, 5 seconds better than I anticipated as I felt we would need at least 45-60 seconds for the next point. Well done. 2-1 Bears
Luckily, the Revo/Aftermath point gave us plenty of time to develop our next play. We came together and developed our plot. We knew we wanted to flood two narrow access points, one dorito way and one snake way. I got frustrated at first because we bounced that D side can on the break. Nic ended up trading with him though. By this point, we were now at both 50s with approximately 50 seconds. Plenty of time. Stuart Ridgel and Jacob Searight were gun dominant, threaded the seams and went for it. The guys pushed with Drew Bell blocking for Daniel Camp who showed great field awareness and timing. He hit the buzzer with 10 seconds left. Yes, you know we were going to play it. 2-2 Tied
That overtime point marked the 2nd point I want back in this match. Searight made a great read, got to dorito 3 but decided to stand tall even though his teammates were yelling the snake is hot. Bears made the 50 snake and shot him. His reaction caused him to injure the same foot he injured just prior to our practice the weekend before. The good news was we got our set up for the snake side. The bad news is it would have been better with a Dorito 3 presence. With the body disadvantage, we are not in a good spot, especially when they finally shot Drew out of D side can. It was now a five on three with just under two minutes. It did not look good for us. Stuart kept over-watch effectively stalling the Bears’ snake side attack and we picked up a cross field kill as Nic put a ball on the Bears’ dorito one player. 4 on 3 but the advantage was still with the Bears. But then we dug out the Bears forward D side player… but they were quick to take ground and replaced that loss. 3 on 3 with about a minute twenty left. We hold. On to one on ones.
As a former teammate and coach of Evan Manners, I knew the Bears would send him out. That young man is a terrific gun fighter and has not been given his due in the pro division. But I feel he has finally found a team where he can be seen and shine. Headed into this event, we worked one on ones with big gun Drew Bell proving his mettle so he got the call. He pressed the action early and it looked like he had Evan trapped in a can. Drew was dynamic and created pressure early on. But, as he has proved time and time again in the past, Evan can put a ball on just about anyone. Drew ended up on Evan’s side of the field and crossed paths with a ball. Bears win.
Vs Red legion
This last match against the Legion doesn’t require too much in depth analysis. I will critique the first six points and sum up the rest as it will be that easy.
We had scouted the Legion and knew exactly what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. Knowing that and actually stopping it are two different things, however, especially when they were simply playing on another level than anyone else at this event. We also had an idea that, should we win, great, we were on to Sunday. But if we could keep it close, as in, by 1, we may still be on to Sunday as well.
First point is pretty simple to dissect. They shot 4 of us on the break. 1-0 Legion
Second point we focused our guns on specific access points up the gut and they paid off. We shot three of them on the break, made the read to close out. Drew Bell launched to take the last Legion player in the Dorito, who ended up spinning on Drew. Major assessed on Legion and we would be on the power play next point. 1-1 Tied
We were not even a full two minutes into this match and we were on the power play. We had seen Legion play a 5 on 3 point the day before and knew where they would want to be. So we set up on that very break. I believe they changed one body but it didn’t matter as we shot one on the break. Unfortunately, Nic took a skimmer of a pack hit and drew the minor taking out 5 on 2 down to a 3 on 2. When they got to the corners, I thought it would settle in for a bit of a longer point. But Britt Simpson clocked in and pressed the doritos aggressively while Daniel Camp pushed snake way. Britt got a shot in on the Legions’ dorito player and Drew Bell finally joined the fray. 3 on 1 with Legion in the snake 2. Surprisingly, Legion conceded. 2-1 Canes
We pushed the dorito side but Legion decided to do the same just with a lot more aggression. They made snake 50 too and shot our stalled dorito push by getting a pack hit in on Stu. And then we just started losing gunfights. We end up in a 5 on 2 and were not in position. They were. I decided to save my guys and conceded the point. 2-2 Tied
Both teams lost a body on the break this point but Legion took that Dorito wedge early and caused pressure from the go. Pate decideed to press snake way in an effort to counter but got caught. Drew Bell launched to dig out Dorito inhibitor with a quick follow up from Britt Simpson. Would have been a great counter if Drew didn’t get caught before he got his man. Stuart Ridgel also lookd to exploit but got caught as well. 3-2 Legion
We showed our guns on the break the next point shooting 2 Legion players. On this Stuart Ridgle went hyper aggressive (good) onto the Legions side of the field but just got picked up. 3 on 3. Aaron Pate lost a gun fight in the snake to Malloy and we had to press into the Legions guns. 4-2 Legion
Both teams continued to shoot bodies on the break… this next point it was 3 on 3 off the rip. Stuart Ridgel once again made an aggressive play down dorito side while Daniel Camp pressed into the snake. Stu got picked up again and we ended up in another down body situation. 5-2 Legion
The rest of the story is the Legion continued to shoot bodies on the break and we did not. Legion wins.
So, what does this mean for the New Orleans Hurricanes? It simply means we have to do better. We have under performed two events in a row now. Our processes have served us well up until this point but don’t seem to be enough anymore. The league has caught up and we are seeing there are no easy games anymore. Last year, our draw would have been a gift. As evident, any draw this year will be a bloody battle. We have to look at our scars and learn. Grow smarter…and adapt. And we will. These last two set backs will just make the comeback that much sweeter. Roll Canes.
Before I close, I want to tell you about a young man that is very near and dear to me and the New Orleans Hurricanes’ hearts. His name is Grayson Manning. Grayson is a regular at our home field of LaXtreme paintball in Slidell, LA. He is an up and coming talent in paintball as well as an amazing young man. He was struck by a vehicle on Father’s Day and has been fighting every day since. Please, if you have some to spare, consider sharing to his GoFundMe page found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-graysons-fight-and-recovery?qid=36d2a4f54cf22bc7c4bcd3449408fc1b
Grayson, his family, and the New Orleans Hurricanes, thank you!
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . .” –Epictetus
I would imagine there are some people out there who, if they were in my shoes, would be upset about following up a 2nd place finish at the Las Vegas Open with a 13th place finish at the Lonestar. Whereas, I am certainly not happy with our performance, my personal attitude is not one of anger or distress. I am quite aware of the opportunities we missed and the mistakes we made. The key is how we will respond to what was controllable and what was not. If we let single events define us, we wouldn’t be in the professional league today. The success the New Orleans Hurricanes has seen in this sport is due to our ability to assess and adapt to obstacles and adversities placed in our path. Yes, some of those are self inflicted but those are usually the greatest lessons. No one should allow negative emotions or reactions to bad performances become a weight around their shoulders…
Additionally, no one wants to remind themselves of mistakes. As I stated above, the key is to understand why that performance happened. Identify the issues and take a proactive step in addressing them. A prime example would be our performance at Cup, our work to correct issues from there, and our performance in Las Vegas. I think most would agree it was night and day. Consistency is key, especially in the pro division. That consistency, whether it is with the team or an individual player, is paramount to success. But when it falls short on both levels, you will not have a good event.
It’s been said by great men that success is “neither magical nor mysterious.” It is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals. We were not anywhere close to consistent in our execution of play at this event. That falls on me. I failed to lead my men out of an off malaise… I will work on that.
With that said, this event recap may be a little different from others. I will address the matches we lost in detail and briefly comment on the matches we won.
That cucumber is bitter, so toss it out! There are thorns on the path, then keep away! Enough said. Why ponder the existence of nuisance? Such thinking would make you a laughing-stock to the true student of Nature, just as a carpenter or cobbler would laugh if you pointed out the sawdust and chips on the floors of their shops. Yet while those shopkeepers have dustbins for disposal, Nature has no need of them.” –Marcus Aurelius
PREPARATION
I think we prepared well for this event. We had a great practice partner, we worked the right aspects of the field, and we had a good game plan headed into the event. I know this because, when we did execute the game plans well, we won. That’s all the proof I need. We knew this field came down to four things:
Win the break. As with all layouts, a numerical advantage off the break usually pays dividends and for this field, I felt it was multiplied. I also felt our guns were dialed in and ready.
Be first to create opportunities from your secondaries to shift guns and/or get crafty and set traps.
Get lost/crafty to create hesitation and uncertainty with opponent during mid game scramble.
Close clean with a good stranglehold and good clock management.
We had shown a good understanding of how to do this and practiced it significantly. However, when we got to the event, we struggled with recreating that success…
VS Aftershock
I felt confident heading into this match. There was no doubt in my mind it would be a match similar to many knife fights we had endured before. But I knew if we could put Aftershock away, no matter the score, it was going to be a good event for us. We also knew that, with their roster, no matter the performance at the last event, they would be prepared. So we were definitely looking at them as a great test.
Pt1 – We went pocket and Aftershock beat us to the Center punch. We got the first body though with good zone control shooting their snake player. But we gave them one right back from our home. A-rod may have been first in the center, but a slow patient probe in the center by Stuart Ridgel paid dividends when he took A-rod off the board and staid alive. We gave them one back again though in our attempt to take the snake. Came down to a 3 v 3. Another attempt at craftiness cost Stu his body (it’s first point, I like the idea just not how it was attempted). Drew Bell got sneaky but got caught and Searight made me proud pushing forward. We squandered that point. 0-1 Shock
Pt2 – Strong guns on the break, which was prevalent during our prep, show up on the second point and we made smart fills to our secondaries in support of the goal. We were in control from the break and start our stranglehold. A good point. This point was, in my opinion, indicative of how the field would play and how the Canes would play it. 1-1 Tied
Pt3 – We set up with the “Big 5” in order to get eyes on snake, increase guns, and position ourselves to take center when necessary. Shock went pocket save for a d-side wide asset. Shock was first to the center, not with one, but two assets. Again, our secondary is just behind Shock’s but we determined at practice that being first isn’t always best in that center. The two bodies though was an effective counter to the theory. What made me happy was our composure during the scramble. A disciplined understanding of the situation. 2-1 Canes
Pt4 – Aftershock had shown a tendency to crash the center and then expand (a smart approach as most teams would leverage this tactic including us). It was time to use that against them though and beat them to the punch. The goal of our play here was to take the path of least resistance to the center d-side (Aftershock was leaving that hole available), try to snag the center kill, and take anything additional they give us. Hopefully, the chaos would draw attention (at worst trade), and we would build off that crash to take snake and dorito wides. We were rewarded with the play developing better than I had hoped as Stu got two kills immediately, AND we made both wides. We were now set up to kill clock with the lead. Shock helps us by sending a body to trade with Stu. It was now a four on two situation, we owned the spots… Shock smartly concedes the point with just under 4 minutes left. 3-1 Canes
Pt5 – Internally, I was feeling confident in our game plan and was pleased (save for that first point) with the execution up to that point. Shock had shown mostly center push then expansion, where we had shown mostly pocket. The play call was to risk the snake on this one to counter their center push and/or meet their anticipated snake run. Disaster strikes. Our high risk runner made it and my lower risk home died followed quickly by two more from our pocket. This was the point that was the deciding factor for the match in my opinion. Had we survived this break for just 30-40 seconds, we would have won in regulation. Woulda coulda shoulda… 3-2 Canes
Pt6 – Naturally, we felt that Shock would want a combo of center with snake presence. We felt this would be an opportunity to take dorito wide on the break. Again, my high risk player made it but we gave them a home player… followed quickly by our snake side tower. Stu survived the snake attack while in the dorito tower and made a play to take the snake off the board. He succeeded. It was now a 4-2 advantage to Shock. I always give my guys time to win a gunfight or pull something out. They won a gunfight. It was now a 3-2 advantage for Shock. We had worked on the alamo scenario at practice. Daniel Camp knew he needed to make snake corner and did with about a minute and a half left. Again, we played this scenario out several times in preparation so my confidence is high. My confidence SOARED when we picked off another shock player making it a 2-2 with about a minute left and we owned dorito 2 and snake corner. Put it in the bag… or so I thought. A bad decision to gun fight over the top of the snake corner cost us this game in regulation with, you guessed it, 30-40 seconds left. 3-3 tied
Pt7 – We wanted to go for the win. We had a few different fast point plays in the ol’ playbook. The question was which one to use based off Shock’s (and Todd’s) tendencies. There was a little less than 30 seconds on the clock but there were a few instances at practice where we pulled off 20-25 second wins. In this particular case, it isn’t a full send. The plan was to attack hard center and d-side leaving Daniel Camp and Nic Rippel as contingency in case it didn’t work out. We would crash the center with Stu but used Drew Bell on a delay just off center d-side and let Jacob Searight wheel and deal wide. Stu crashed, took one with him, and then Drew cleared through getting two. Shock got a minor but with only 4 seconds left, Searight can’t make the buzzer. Close but as we all know, that only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
OT – We get a minor. On the break. Playing 3 on 5 with 5 minutes on the clock, against Shock, who owned the snake and center… not a high probability positive outcome. Barring a miracle, we just lost a match we shouldn’t have lost. No miracle arrived. The positive take away was, when we executed the game plan well and played as a team, we looked phenomenal. Consistency… we would have to increase that aspect and would be just fine…
VS Bears
We won this match and were in control for the majority of it. Our guns on the break showed up along with our zone control on every point we win. However, I do want to address the two points we lost in this match.
Pt2 – We had good guns on break to start the match shooting the Bears snake runner AND we made the snake. Gun fight losses will happen… but when it came down to a 3 on 3, we made a small mental error. Drew Bell attempted to spread to the d-side from the snake side since we had no presence there and the Bears did. We owned the center and snake which can contest the Bears snake and snake tower. One could argue, we could have used our Center to contest d-side aggression but I digress. I am not upset with Drew’s repositioning per say. More that he tried to push the envelope when it wasn’t necessary. We weren’t at a point where we needed to press anything or make something happen. Had he been content with making the dorito one, we more than likely would have been good. Instead, we forced the issue, gave the body away, and let the Bears back into the game with a short clock.
Pt6 – If just one of the two Canes players who played dorito can or snake side tower, either one, stayed alive, we would have won 4-1 in a 50 second point. Either one of them. But it didn’t happen, allowing the Bears to find the hole and put another point on the board with a 46 second point.
VS MLKings
On this layout and in this division, you can’t play 3 on 5 and expect to win the points much less the match. We were not hitting our shots in this match and if we were, well, we needed better paint management. We knew they were slow into some key bunkers and even when they did this in our match, we weren’t catching the body. We scouted them and expected them to play a little pocket, and we were right. Even knowing what they were going to do, we weren’t able to generate any momentum.
Pt1 – The kings shot two of us off the break and we gave them a third all within the first 20 seconds. Nope. Concede, reset.
Pt2 – Kings pocketed up and we took the center first with a delay out to dorito 2. We were in great position for this point. We shot Kyle Barry followed by the Kings countering through the center only to have missed their shot. We should have now been in control of the point as Stu repositioned in the center to counter their counter. But, once again, we gave them a body out of our backfield allowing the Kings to take snake. So, an advantage lost. Stu played sloppy and got caught. But Daniel Camp and Jacob Searight almost turned it around with Danimal getting into the snake to contest and Searight taking ground into dorito 4 generating a kill. 3 v 3 now. In a rare moment, Daniel missed a shot on the snake tower for the Kings which would have blown the point open since that player was stalling the d-side attack. When Drew Bell got out behind Searight, I thought okay… force multiplier. Then Drew called his shot on the snake player for the Kings. I, too, thought I saw it but, ref calls him clean. The big domino to fall was Searight getting clipped in the loader… I love Drew and Danimal trying to break things open but it doesn’t pay off.
Pt 3 – The Kings spread (that’s the best two bunkers to own to kill clock – Dorito 1 and snake corner). Again, no kills on break for us even though we set up for it. We lost a body again from the snake tower. Searight understood the situation and got out wide on d-side. We evened the count with a kill from snake side tower and then shot another from their dorito corner. We had a four on three body advantage but we gave the Kings the snake again and allowed Kyle Barry to play fast and loose in the center. The snake took Drew off the board. Our only hope was to win a gunfight or to have Searight clock in. Stu ended up getting a bullstuff penalty… it was bang bang. Kyle, like many of the pros, gets to talk after being eliminated and plead a case. I am not allowed to review.
Pt 4 – We were down by three with 5:40 left on the clock. Enough time to come back and win. But we had to execute better. For example, not hitting our shots and then hanging over the top for too long at the center bunker to get shot. Not how we do it. I said I would let the point go until 4:30 unless I saw life from my guys. Searight was in position d-side again (as he was apt to do most of the event) and Pate took the center. The boys bought themselves another 30 seconds. But then, we lost Searight…so no, you don’t get another 30.
Pt5 – At this point, I’m looking at the clock thinking, we need at least two points. Plenty of time to do it. But I wasn’t getting production out of any one of my starters really, save for Searight. A good coach knows what to say, how to say it, and when. This is where I fell short. I thought, let’s take a breath, get our guns up, don’t force the point, get a point on the board with a base play. We lost our d-side tower, Kings took dorito 3 and we don’t see it because of the elimination on the break (best eyes to see that move). Daniel Camp almost pulled off a heroic response attacking down the snake side but with his teammates dying behind him, it was a valiant effort between him and Searight, but not enough.
Pt6 – I’m looking at the clock, I’m looking at the score, and I am looking at my guys. None of those things looked good. Time to see what my guys who haven’t seen the field much can do. We have dug a serious hole in order to make Sunday now. Time to take the opportunity to see how bad my guys want to show me what they can do. I look to the bench and they wanted it. So they got the call. They go out and look better than the starters did the entire match. Searight, Mike Brown, and Ryan Williamson go out and play well. Searight and Mike Brown pressed the issue dorito way as they know the situation and gave me 200%. Ryan Williamson goes full send but we ran out of time.
VS Impact
Based off our scouting report of Impact, we had a good understanding of what they wanted to do. But you can’t ignore the fact that we were playing subpar… I had done the math and knew we weren’t making Sunday. I had a theory though on Impact which was confirmed and would make the difference in my opinion. That theory was confirmed when we went down 2-0, and then Impact conceded the 3rd point when they still had a player on the board. I knew they were playing for the margin. We were playing for pride and pride only. There is a difference. And it was the small edge we needed. My adjustment (besides personnel) was to adapt the game plan to the corners. If we could get wide either on the break or through secondaries, Impact would put us on the board with their aggression into our zone control. Granted, our zone control had been spotty all weekend but my guys are warriors. They knew what needed to happen. It would not go as planned but… it went. And I will take it. This was a great growth moment for the squad as a whole.
Pt1 – We shot their pocket shooter, expanded well and set the trap for Urena in the snake. Urena popped the top though and made a great shot on Pate. Not much you can do save for what I said in the pit, “Well… damn.” Mike Brown clocked in and got wide dorito. We now owned dorito 1 and the snake, so we aren’t in a bad position. Ryan Williamson, who stepped up for me, got clipped once Impact finally got through the zone dorito side. But Mike Brown got it back for us making a great shot on Cornell. It was 3v3 as we crossed the 5 minute threshold. A great shot by an Impact player caught Drew Bell, was returned by ANOTHER great shot by Mike Brown but in the chaos, Impact took the first point.
Pt2 – Both teams have the same breakout with Impact winning the break as we lost Searight dorito way. They then had some really crisp secondary expansions trapping us in the pocket. Daniel Camp, knowing we had to have that snake made it and actually got our first elimination. Stu tried to make something happen through the center but got caught. Drew Bell knew we had to be wide d-side and got out there picking up a crucial elimination on Impact. 3 v 3 again. But the wheeling and dealing went on too long and Drew got picked off. Pate understood where the hole was, tried to fill it but he and Daniel both died almost simultaneously.
Pt3 – We were down 2-0. I explained again the importance of having these corners and why Impact has to come. We risked throwing Nic at the snake corner to draw the gun deep with the intent to feed underneath from snake tower. It worked partially as we made the snake but Nic got picked off. It paid off though because impact must not have seen the feed as we caught their snake coming to our side. We have evened it up and Britt Simpson created an opportunity making dorito corner. We are now set up to let Impact die coming forward. We got some key eliminations, to make it a 3 on 1 and Impact conceded the point. Confirmation of theory and now we were on the board. The guys are all in now. We’re going to win.
Pt4 – It was time to take the fight to them while the guys are spirited up. “Crafty time.” We knew Impacts’ tendency now and decided to take advantage. Britt Simpson got the call and we shot him to dorito 3 on the dorito can route. This would shift at least two guns and allowed a center punch dorito side as well as got a second asset out dorito way. It worked. The penalty on Drew was bogus but hey, it didn’t matter as Britt Simpson and Mike Brown closed out the point with a great shot by MB dotting Urena’s eye in the corner.
Pt5 – One name. Mike Brown… We sent Stu to the snake side 40 wall to wrap and trap, to take a body, and draw a gun to allow snake to feed. We had d-side tower to position for center and be a force multiplier when necessary. Stu did not take a body and got picked up… but we made the snake. Britt forced the outside dorito move since he knew what I wanted and Bell got picked up. We were in dire straights now… it was 4 on 2 advantage to Impact. But Mike Brown and Daniel Camp said “not today” making it a 2 on 2! Mike Brown with his super power of survivability won his gun fight! Daniel heard this and in the chaos launched on Impacts snake player and trades! Mike Brown was still alive and Impact conceded. Mike Brown… way to be. He really has earned the nickname, “Clutch”
Pt6 – I wanted the corners on the break. Let’s just get there. And we made it. Very pleased. But then we lost the dorito corner shortly after. Drew Bell made a play to dig out Impacts center presence but got picked up. Even then, we were still in good spots to hold (snake, snake corner, and dorito can). We lost our dorito can and Impact has the bodies to trade. They hit the buzzer with 5 seconds left. We wanted to play the point so we could work on game plan.
OT – Ride or die… it was time to get back to basics. We had had plenty of practice now… no excuse not to execute the game plan that we had prepared headed into this event. Time to make it work for us instead of against us. Full Circle… let’s see if we had learned. And we had. We shot interior while protecting wides. Paint broke on Impact’s dorito tower. 5-4 advantage Canes. Zone control picked up Mike Urena as he tried to force the snake move. 5-3 advantage Canes. Bell took the center, Daniel made snake corner, Nic took the snake, Searight took the dorito corner, Mike Brown contained. We would win this point barring anything ridiculous. Nic Rippel showed why he is a Hurricane by going down the snake to Impact’s side of the field. He got a three pack to close out the game leaving us with 4 bodies alive.
Not a bad consolation prize finally beating Impact and knocking a top team like them out of the tournament… but I would really like to have that Aftershock match back.
This event was strange. It’s been a few days now, and I still haven’t put my finger on what our issues were other than, we were missing/bouncing some shots on opponents, and I wasn’t getting production out of my starters. Several big moment mistakes by guys who don’t normally make them appeared to be the main issue. My initial reaction is that we were our toughest opponent this event. Not the teams in front of us… us. The goal now is to focus on our next practices and event prep with renewed optimism and understanding. We will assess our performance in order to improve our consistency and not dwell too much on the mistakes and missed opportunities from this last event. Back to the opening message about consistency… Consistency requires you to “be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” To move forward, the Canes need to review our process, ensure we are emphasizing the proper things, and develop solutions.
Have you ever heard the story about the little engine that could? Let me tell you that story … toot, toot… and how Charlie rigged the trestle!
Okay, on a serious note…
Preparation
When the layout dropped, I think many had mixed thoughts about it, including myself. At first I thought, okay – Lonestar concept from 2022 (as one Hurricane staff stated, “As if Vegas was cheating off Lonestar’s test but Lonestar said, make sure you can’t tell it was me”). We met an important goal at that event two years ago and made our first Sunday. I believe that success came from our due diligence of walking that field for 5 hours and putting together some good theories. For this layout, I ended up doing a quick digital field walk live for The Coaches Show which was highly rushed. That is where I first recognized some possibilities. And then met with my guys to do the same thing on a Zoom call that same evening.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of us were a little apprehensive during and after the initial discussion. We recognized early on that this layout had a lot of “holes” depending on circumstances displayed on the break. We would challenge that hypothesis during our layout practice against the ML Kings. As someone who wants to understand how to “control” a field, I was banging my head against the wall until two of my guys Justin Bailey and Britt Simpson said, “You have to let it go and trust us to make good decisions.” They were right. The prevailing wind was that, to lock anything down, you had to take ground early and fast (risk). We decided, well heck, if we are going to do that, why lock down and not just attack. In other words, you had to attack forward to get position to control… why not just press the attack. Pressure would be the key. Once we decided this, it then became a question of statistical analysis on where best to attack from, the timing of it, how to create it when you couldn’t on the break, who to bully/pick on, so on and so forth. It wasn’t that you couldn’t win from a pocket, but you were certainly at a disadvantage if your opponent was first and beat you out of it. This field could turn like a clock too.
So, we decided it was time to show the “old Canes” from before our pro debut. Time to start throwing punches… and hard. This approach became somewhat jeopardized due to the fact that Nic Ripple injured his ankle early on Sunday morning against the Kings along with Britt Simpson who tweaked his knee. Couple that with not having one of our anchors, Aaron Pate, we were at a little of a detriment. Or were we? This team has shown time and time again we can address adversity. What I love about my guys is they almost always rise to an occasion and this wouldn’t be any different. We adjusted. No fear, no complaining, just work. And that’s what I got out of them. My guys answered the call and frankly, I didn’t have any doubt they would.
Headed into this event, we felt that the “D” side could be exploited occasionally along with a fair mixture of the “snake side” aggression. Our guns on break were still showing good statistics as well. We knew a lot of teams would put heavy guns snake way, allowing our risk vs reward approach on the D-side to work percentage wise. We worked on some center pushes, but the D-side attack made more statistical sense to us as the center was susceptible to several guns from several locations on the field. Pretty much everyone could shoot you from somewhere and the routes were precarious. We also wanted to try and hide our stack on top of mixing up where we would put players in an effort to be a little harder to scout. Not sure if the latter ended up working but the effort was there none the less.
VS IRONMEN
We had scrimmaged the Ironmen just 2 weeks prior to the layout dropping. I thought this was advantageous for two reasons. One, it would give me a good look at where my guys stood heading into the season after our disastrous World Cup and, two, give me insight into the Men’s new talent pool (we knew they were our first match at the event). The data I got was insightful but when the layout dropped I had a new conundrum from the data set. I wasn’t sure the data would hold given the layout… but it was better than nothing and we weren’t too far off with our assessment. Now, I don’t want to give too much away here but we were certainly paying attention to their stack on the box. The first point both teams get all 5 out alive. We overloaded the D-side and the Ironmen went for a heavy snake presence but pushed the weak D-side with Nicholaou. We ended up in much better field position with the Men in the pocket save for Nicholaou. But we made a mistake and a bad read/job was dropped here. We let Kyle take ground. Once Stuart made the corner, Bailey repositioned to counter Kyle. But now our initial attack has stalled when we allowed Kyle to get a kill. Bailey tried to salvage the point. He made the right call but went just a little too wide on the stab. The Ironmen closed out the 3 on 2 well. 0-1 IRONMEN
We went with a snake attack with the intention to spread when the guns shifted. We won the break out and Searight made the Ironmen’s side of the field pretty quickly. He began peeling bodies which allowed quick follow up guns with our 2’s. Apologies to Omara- glad you found that wedding ring brother! 1-1 TIED
Similar break outs save for one asset with the Ironmen pulling up just short of snake where we tried to take it and got eliminated. With our center tower holding snake way, and Daniel getting into the corner, we stalemated for a moment. However, the Ironmen made the correct secondaries to the wides as well as the center. Daniel countered with a snake move but we left him on an island. Which, I didn’t feel was the correct read. Britt Simpson went to dig out Sentz who sold the ref on a penalty. 1-2 IRONMEN
We had to play a body down on the next point but that didn’t phase us. We had a goal in mind and I had a time limit in my head for my 4 guys to get it done. The play worked out but we lost Daniel on the break. That didn’t change my time frame, especially since we got the set up we wanted… just meant one job had to change. Even when we lost Drew, I saw Stuart see the line so I didn’t walk towards the concede button. He almost pulled it off. So, now I had to concede since we lost Nic behind Stu too. But there was still over 5 minutes on the clock. PLENTY of time. 1-3 IRONMEN
We send Searight wide and deep to draw the gun out and up on the next play. Daniel then filtered underneath from home. We also knew that the Men had shown a penchant to go weak D-side save for Nicholaou. Daniel made it in, and we peeled a body for good measure blowing that side. We knew that you could counter opposite side so jobs shifted to keep that from happening. It was a well-executed play that took about 1 minute. 2-3 IRONMEN
I just knew that the Men would try to get to that snake corner. We keyed up, got the kill and were blessed that it wound up being a penalty for the Ironmen as well. After 5 looks, we send a rabbit but with a twist. We got to the D-side corner and fed from the home again. It paid off. The Men were only using one gun to protect that way and with the penalty…well, there you go. We won the point in about 45 seconds or so. Tie game with 3 minutes left. We had the momentum, but we weren’t going to come off the gas. 3-3 TIED
We wanted to get 5 out alive. I gave Searight the freedom to make the read. This was actually kind of funny… we shot one off the break and it drew another penalty for the Men which blew the side. Searight entered the pit upset saying “I screwed that one up coach”. I said, “You’re fine, we shot two on the break.” He looks shocked and says, “Man, I REALLY screwed that one up then!” Love that guy. He holds himself to a standard and, as a coach, you love to see it. With the Ironmen’s D-side blown, Daniel shifted out to the corner for the wrap and trap. Drew Bell went aggressive on our D-side. There was plenty of time on the clock. My guys pieced together the correct effective push. Stuart backed Drew for a two man operation while Bailey and Daniel worked together to change the fronts. When the Ironmen’s snake allowed it, Bailey took our snake and that was the nail in the coffin for the Ironmen. They conceded with 21 seconds left on the clock. But, as we had seen at practice, that is all the time you needed to punch a hole and get a body through. So now I’m thinking, gotta risk some kill zones to protect…4-3 HURRICANES
We spread the field because we knew they wouldn’t get accurate guns up with 21 seconds. We made it out alive and zoned up. Game. Close one. We would have to play much tighter against the next team. Hats off to the Ironmen. They will have a good season.
VS DAMAGE
I was happy we were able to catch Damage early in the prelims. I was not happy we caught them after a loss. Joey and I are both scouters who like to understand nuances about our upcoming opponents. The question became, how to surmise their adjustments after the loss. We concluded it was going to be leveraging Raney through the center. We had shown how we ultimately wanted to play the field in the 7 points against Ironmen. I was hoping we could just make them play our game, react to us, chase us. We also knew they would be staring into the sun the first point. I want to make sure we won everyone of those points, so we had to make it count.
Sure enough, we got in the snake and they used Raney up the center in what I assume was a plan to ambush my guy on his first engagement (whack a mole). However, we shot their backline early. This was probably because of the massive glare/sun they were looking into. But Raney couldn’t see Searight who got a quick wrap and two kills before Raney cleared through the center to shoot Searight in the back. Too little too late. 1-0 HURRICANES
The next point we were now facing the sun. We figured let’s get guns up, spread D-side to draw a gun and filter underneath into the snake. Keith Brown made that snake side dorito (what we were calling the god) but seemed content to stay on containment, that or he wasn’t risking it weighing their guns against ours. Again, we only had one gun to beat on that same top side. With it drawn deep, we determined we could go underneath with the late launch. It worked. Raney released to the center to maintain snake side dominance but I don’t think he knew or received the call that we were in the dorito side snake. Daniel got a free kill on him. Damage responded by Keith taking additional ground and getting support out behind him in that can. We knew they were in there with us now though and we had the body advantage. Damage was set up to push that way but Daniel readied for the trade and, having over watch, it essentially would come down to a gunfight… and we didn’t have to engage/fight Damage… we knew better. Unfortunately, that led to them taking ground on the other side as well. I’m in the pit WAITING for Keith to trade… and he does. We still had the 4-3 body advantage.
Unfortunately, we gave them a body back (glare got Bailey, like a Douglas Dauntless out of the sun). 3 on 3 but Searight reacted well by getting that ground back D-side. With Drew in the corner, Stu saw the opportunity and moved up the center with a smart probe and got the drop! A 6-minute chess match of a point. 2-0 HURRICANES
We were back on the shadow side. We had gone to the snake a lot so I asked Searight to take the corner. Unfortunately, I got him shot. Gratefully, our guns were hot and we traded him for Keith Brown AND Chris Horn. They tried to take advantage of the chaos, but our zone control took another body. Nic got in on this one and clocked in. We lost Stu but we were in a 3 on 2 situation and with a 2-point lead. I looked at the clock and started trying to get it to go faster hoping Joey wouldn’t concede it. He did. 3-0 HURRICANES
Joey pulled one out of our book by having Rainey shoot from home and feed weak D-side to that important wedge. The rest was the same with Keith pulling up short in that large dorito snake way. We lost one on the break but Rainey was picked off, leaving Britt Simpson in the snake alone on that side. He crawled into their side to apply pressure. Damage looked to plug the hole by getting out into the baby dorito in front of Britt. Keith finally fed the snake too. We let a second body get out in front of Britt… and then they filled the corner behind Keith…frustrating. Tandem line between Britt and our corner was too long. If Britt had stayed still and relaxed, we would have probably burned more time off the clock. When he was eliminated, it allowed Damage back into the match as we were now on our heels on the back line. Drew was caught by Keith which allowed Keith the kill on Stu. This left Mike Brown in the corner. Mike eliminated two but the Edwards brothers closed it out. 3-1 HURRICANES
About 4 minutes are left on the clock. Again, we couldn’t sit on our laurels and try to “cross” it up here. If we wanted to kill the clock, we had to attack and take the fight to Damage. That is what made this layout so derivative. Our guns were hot on the break the next point, shooting two in conjunction with a minor penalty against Damage. Joey didn’t hesitate and conceded, only knocking 10 seconds off the clock. 4-1 HURRICANES
We were up by 3 with still just under 4 minutes on the clock (last point took less than 10 secs). Meaning Damage had to win three points in a minute each to tie… certainly within the realm of possibility. But I knew my guys were in the flow state now and should be good. I knew if we could stuff that next point we would be golden. But Damage had other plans. They took the snake and center on the break which we calculated they would do. We shot the snake and bounced the center… but then WHAMO! My guys started walking off in droves. It wasn’t guns on the break, it was looking into first balls… not good. As a coach I was now thinking I needed to make sure my guys didn’t let that one get in their head…They were way ahead of me of course and were ready to get that one back. 4-2 HURRICANES
We went high probability safety with two short secondaries for zone control (the Dynasty equation is what I am calling it right now). However, we lost one early. Not a disaster but not optimum. People say we were going defensive… my comment to that is that if you felt we went defensive here, you don’t understand how the field plays. One of my guys dropped his job because (I think) he was called off of it allowing Keith into the snake. I don’t think we saw it because when he does get back on the job, he is shooting the zone to protect the snake entry Keith already went through (I later confirmed this was the case). This causes the entire team to fall. 4-3 HURRICANES
Damage had less than a minute. Knowing this, they probably aren’t getting more than 2-3 guns up on the break. We wanted to get guns up and make a play for the weak D-side with a runner. We shot one on the break and made the position necessary to counter center. Sure enough, we shot center and now had control of 50% of the field. I was a little concerned when we lost our snake side but when the clock hit 30 and Damage hadn’t come out of pocket yet, I knew we would win it. The last second push by the two Damage players was valiant but not enough. My guys had the wherewithal to go get that last point. 5-3 HURRICANES
VS INFAMOUS
Jamroz was a player that could get into the snake at will on day 1. We wanted to get guns on him early. We used Daniel Camp up the gut to add that on the break force multiplier since we hadn’t been using it. Infamous put a ball on him anyway. But we did get the kill… so it’s a 4 on 4 off the break. I felt we got the better of the exchange though as we got a body wide (Britt Simpson) and we eliminated theirs. With Britt wide, that allowed Drew Bell to make his way-out D-side and go to work increasing pressure. Infamous reacted well though and gave themselves breathing room with two quick bumps to expand their pocket a little. We were set to where they must risk going through guns to counter now and we had one piece (Drew) that could play offense. Drew got his inside kill which would have been Infamous’ best chance to counter. He ended up getting clipped by the god counter because we had let off that zone control in order to go offensive with a two-sided attack (timing). We still had the advantage with positioning but then Infamous did a great expansion move while Mike Brown’s gun was out of the fight on his crawl in the snake. Both Mike Brown and Infamous retreated out of their respective snake locations. (Mike Brown and I will be working in the snake some upcoming practices- he said he has a newfound respect for his snake brethren). He backed up only to have Stuart tell him he was moving the wrong way (you have to laugh at these things)! Good thing too because Mike worked his way back and blew the side open. Once that happened, Stu made the right read/move and helped close the game. Infamous conceded an essentially 6-minute point. 1-0 HURRICANES
Infamous wasn’t going to change anything. It would be two at home, the Aztec D-side, the mini wall snake way on a cross, and snake. We had a similar break but went just short in the god. We got a minor for a hopper hit which removed both of my home players. However, Daniel Camp was out a little wider and now we were in a position to at least kill a little clock (as well as shoot a low probability bounce shot…). But that low probability shot landed! 4 on 3 advantage Infamous but I don’t think Sam Silberg knew where the bodies were or maybe got some bad intel. He gave us his body. Now we had evened the count and we knew it. The comms from my guys on this point (Searight, Bailey, and Daniel) were stellar. Infamous made a good counter up the center and had the drop on Daniel but missed! Daniel said screw it and went offensive once he tracked that Nate Schroeder had retreated. Nate tried to get it back but a heads up play by Searight took him out of the equation. This put us in a 3 on 2 scenario with Infamous on one side of the field. As the clock dwindled under 5 minutes, I thought to myself, relax gentlemen, make them come. Mr. Lemanski knew the score and smartly conceded with about 4:45 on clock. 2-0 HURRICANES
Infamous recognized the situation and had plenty of time to bring the match back. We knew we had to fight fire with fire though on this field. And we did. Regrettably, we ended up in a 2 on 1 (Searight being the one) and they closed it out with about a minute twenty on the clock. Funny, because that was the average time I had calculated to win a point. That would play into the next point. 2-1 HURRICANES
Based off what I had seen from Infamous in this match and their two previous matches, I felt we had a pretty good understanding of what they could do or rather what they wanted to do. If we could get 5 out alive, it would be our game. They wanted ground so we would take ground too. Snake on break and dorito corner (this was important) with three guns up was the play. We made it out alive. Not only were we in position to have eyes on access points, but we were in position to counter and steal a 3rd point when possible. Once we got under 30 seconds, I turned away and walked deeper into the pit knowing we had sealed the deal. Especially when I saw both 1’s for Infamous being overly cautious with their probes. When the bodies start trading at 15, again, I wasn’t watching. I was telling the pit crew great job not realizing that Searight would get a 3 pack on Infamous to truly close the door on the match (dorito corner). 2-1 HURRICANES
VS NOTORIOUS
We had 3 wins and were guaranteed a Sunday appearance. No matter what happened in this match, we would win the bracket. We discussed and decided we wanted to try a few things. What I didn’t want to happen was for the match to get out of our hands… never thought that would happen, but it did. I didn’t want to lose but thought this is exactly what the team needed headed into Sunday. Hey, we had dodged some bullets earlier and this one landed. We did get to try some center plays, some rope a dope plays, some pocket guns, and our fast point play.
Besides their guns being very well dialed, Notorious used the center well (that and we were getting sloppy in our bunkers dying out of spots). We gave them some help with penalties which was frustrating for me. When we lost and realized we would be playing infamous the next morning, we looked at this match figuring Infamous would pay close attention to it. And it appeared that they did. Notorious (and our own sloppiness) had shown some teams how to beat us. The good news was we could control the sloppiness and we could do something regarding the “game plan”.
Highlights of this match were point 2, point 6, point 9, and point 10. Yep, those are the points we won. LOL 6-4 NOTORIOUS
QUARTER FINALS VS INFAMOUS
When you are facing a team like Infamous, you’re going to have your hands full. Like me, Travis was getting production out of everyone, but especially guys like Barret, Jamroz, Messer, and Hall. To prepare for this match, like I said earlier, we watched our loss to Notorious and cross referenced it with the data we had on Infamous already. We felt Infamous would watch Notorious match and incorporate some of it into their game. So, we looked at our game plans and made a micro adjustment or two.
The first point, we both came out with an identical breakout. Both teams hit the snake, us with Searight, them with Jamroz. The caveat being Britt Simpson has full reign to counter. And he does, acting as a stop gap to Jamroz. As anticipated, Infamous filtered to center to ambush Searight (Messer? Anyway, just like Notorious) and uses the mini wall D-side to contain him on the outside. We had discussed it, Searight knows it, Bailey confirms it, and now Infamous was wasting two guns on one player. This allowed our play to develop. (Searight almost ambushed the Infamous player first but missed his first shot). Searight settled in and waited while Stu moved behind him in the corner. Bailey could come off assignment and get on the straights while Drew was able to force multiply top side with Britt. Perfect execution of the game plan so far by my guys.
But… Britt got clipped. This hurt but wasn’t the end of the world. Bailey now had to shift job assignments again. He stood tall for better eyes and worked towards Drew while Stu joined Searight in the snake to punch a hole. I got a little concerned because, I saw the line for Infamous through the middle here. But you could tell he (Messer?) was locked in on his job and wasn’t concerned about creating an opportunity and risking it. Great comms from Stu and Bailey by the way. Brusselback started to come and I knew Searight would get the kill. But then he changed his mind which extended this point passed 6 minutes. Once Brusselback dropped back, he gets clipped anyway, and I knew we had won the point. Searight could now play freely even with Messer who was probably thinking about that meme “I’m in danger”. Unfortunately, we lost Drew. Then, Stuart pressed too hard. We were in position to take a beat, think it through, but I don’t blame him. He was trying to make something happen which is what I expect from a dynamic player like him. Bailey did what I ask of my guys as well; when in a down body situation, try to make something happen. Jamroz made a good heads up play and hit the buzzer while Searight had to fight too many fronts. All good. A well fought point. Plenty of time to get it back. 0-1 INFAMOUS
Again, I saw no reason to change our play. I am surprised by Infamous’ choice to go corner D-side. We made snake and that corner can’t contest us from there… We got Daniel into Britt’s former spot and were set up well, especially since I don’t think our opponent saw Daniel delay feed the other snake. Infamous was so focused on Searight they didn’t see the second intended threat which was Daniel. Daniel killed two in front of Searight and then traded with his third kill. My guys closed the gap well with appropriate repositioning based off Infamous’ last two remaining players. Tie ball game with just over 4 minutes on the clock. 1-1 TIED
There was a high percentage that Infamous would go back to their standard play of Jamroz to snake and the rest in their safe bunkers to try a slower filter to the center, perhaps use the center tower. Sure enough, they did. We made one little adjustment by pulling Daniel short in the mini wall D-side since we figured they won’t fall for it again. Searight just happened to catch that Infamous didn’t stay in the tower and went to the center wedge. Good catch as this ultimately saves us. I will admit Infamous beat us to the punch here and were set up well to counter. But we had seen this before. Guns turned out to focus on the 1’s and my guys made the appropriate adjustment to counter as well. We went with the 3/2 linear while infamous took a 3/2 spread. It’s a crap shoot layout and this is a great example. But what should have been a total disaster struck with Stuart getting dinked and Drew Bell forcing an unnecessary fill at the time. I think we were around the minute fifty mark… this was one for concern as I know the longest my guys held during practice in these positions was about 2 minutes (scenario training). But we were set up a little different than the optimum spots… still…concede…?
This was gut check time. I asked myself, do I play the numbers or concede the point knowing, on average we will need a minute twenty or greater to tie. I rolled the dice (we are in Vegas after all) and made the decision to ride. The personnel I had out there were solid and in relatively good position. Glad I did. This call wasn’t math or statistics anymore. It was faith. And there is a difference between belief and faith. I held my rosary, said a short prayer, and watched my guys dig out a kill at 40 seconds. Then Daniel Camp makes a SICK snap on Jamroz at 20 seconds. Daniel was eliminated but Hall got picked up by Bailey and Searight traded at 4 seconds! They didn’t get it!
Thank you, Lord, for that blessing and thank you to my guys for their composure. This would not be the last blessing we would receive in this match. 1-1 STILL TIED
OVERTIME
Infamous won the break shooting Drew Bell for the first time but we succeeded in getting Searight out wide to draw the gun deep and fed Daniel Camp into the D-side snake again. Daniel knew we had to win the snake war against Jamroz and posted up. We went short to the god but Brusselback took the center looking to shut our progress off from there. But he was clipped by Bailey. 4 on 4. The pit side of the field is completely blown for both teams, but we had the slight advantage with Bailey’s gun in the pit side wing. We let Barret Spread. I felt like we could have gotten out of the back center sooner, but I didn’t know what heat was keeping Stu put. I felt like we squandered the opportunity for Stu or Bailey to feed the snake or at least get wider. Stu finally got out behind Bailey into the temple (good… not a big bite… meticulous and smart). But Barret gets to corner. Stu gets picked up… again, had we made this decision before we let him spread, we win in regulation, I feel. Now we were under a minute and Infamous had the 4 on 3 body advantage as well as a slight positioning advantage. Daniel pulled back to dorito 3 to set a trap for Jamroz. Barret takes ground but Bailey became the Great Wall of China. Barret gets Bailey, takes a second to kill Daniel, but Searight tucked tightly in the dorito corner, commits to just protecting the buzzer at 12 seconds. Searight shoots Barret, Messer clips Searight but doesn’t follow Barret up. Wow… dodged a bullet there too!. AND STILL TIED 1-1
1v1’s
Drew Bell spread on Cali off the break and it was the right play at first. Drew should have shot him as Cali left the back center. All the same Drew caught Rudolph with his first jump shot. Cali pulls the trigger and had paint in the air for the second jump shot but it was hard to catch. Mutual.
Daniel Camp, after taking the initiative and then letting Joe Barret press the action, shot Joe with 10 seconds left on the clock. Legend. Enough said. Incredible composure. Well done!
SEMI FINALS VS AFTERMATH
We watched Aftermath’s match against Bears. I’m a little nervous that it might have been misleading since they mercied the Bears 6-0. Couple that with the fact that they seemed to have a two-dimensional approach of thinking to the layout, I was a bit anxious. It appeared they really only had two plays and their closing was inconsistent or rather, they appeared to try to do it alone or individually. Would they have something deeper in their repertoire? We were about to find out. No matter what, our approach to the field, for all intents and purposes, should cancel out their specific approach.
Their VIP side shooter from home seemed to want to shoot wide and if he missed, he would shoot the blind up center then fill out. They liked to feed the two mini walls and look for openings or try to win a gunfight. This would offer us an opportunity to double attack our dorito side with two bodies. Searight drew the gun out wide, Aftermath switched his gun in, Daniel fed snake, Aftermath fed the mini wall with their snake side VIP runner short in the god. We were now in position, but Camp got picked up somehow (he couldn’t tell me where the shot came from and I couldn’t place it in game either). Jacob Searight understood how important that position was to our goal and craftily begins to sneak in to fill Daniel’s former spot.
We got a body back (I don’t know if it was Stu or Bailey who picked off Grayson Gladstone). Again, here is a situation where I felt Stu could have filtered out behind Bailey. Bailey was playing that lay down on the straights and just being a rock. Drew Bell spread to help Searight and we missed a shot on an Aftermath player (maybe a bounce?). Searight finally got in and Stu spread behind Bailey. Now, I’m somewhat happy in the pits… Stu got wide and fed Bailey underneath into the snake. Yes, now we are cooking. That was the set up that we wanted and needed. We had penetration on both sides, but Searight was on their side of the field. Aftermath must fight the wide fronts. This allowed Stu to do what Stu does. Work the center to close. Once Bailey killed the Aztec in front of him, they scrambled into our guns. A solid composed first point. 1-0 HURRICANES
Aftermath went with their standard breakout with one adaptation and that was to the first big dorito. That’s a hard gap and he got dinked. We were essentially mirrored, and we had the one body advantage. Once Daniel and Drew fed forward and out, Aftermath’s one in the god was pretty stuck. That allowed Bailey to get on the straights and work with Searight. Aftermath’s one in the god decided to gunfight into two guns and got caught. Aftermath is quick to fill the Aztec behind that god loss but we now have a 5 on 3 body advantage along with a one-point lead and the clock was ticking. I would be happy if we fed both snakes again at that point, wrap and trap, and make them concede. Stu again had an untimely death, but Searight and Camp finally got on their horses and fed both snakes. I’m surprised the horn wasn’t blown sooner as Searight politely put 1-2 on the last Aftermath player. 2-0 HURRICANES
Aftermath figured they might as well go to the D-side snake on the break but didn’t make it. Again, that’s a big gap for the home to shoot especially when you show it on the box and run high to the mini wall. However, they finally committed past the god, which is what actually prolongs the point AND, should have won them the point too! Castro has Daniel Camp and Drew Bell dead to rights and missed. Castro finally got Daniel. Drew Bell tried to counter but threw his body away. It was looking good for Aftermath, but they slept on Searight. He shot Castro from the opposite snake and then turned to go to work. Aftermath’s dorito corner almost saved the point from Searight but missed as well. Woodruff made a heads up play and tried to flip the field. Mike Brown recognized it and countered by repositioning to back center to at least keep Woodruff honest. What unfolded next was pretty spectacular. Searight knew he had one body in front of him. He backed up to where he can see both sides of the bunker in front of him and posts. Sure enough, Grayson Gladstone launched on the highway and Searight caught him. Gladstone missed Searight as I am sure he thought he would be elsewhere. Aftermath made a desperation move inside, Mike Brown made the call, that Aftermath player gets eliminated by Searight. 3-0 HURRICANES
With less than 2 minutes on the clock we made one adjustment to ensure we got 5 bodies out alive without sacrificing guns on the break and it paid off. Kill two Aftermath on the break. 5 on 3, we don’t have to do anything… made them come to us into the meat grinder. We drew a minor but so did Aftermath. Chaos there at the end. I didn’t envy the refs on this field. We will take it.
FINALS VS SAN DIEGO DYNASTY
Dynasty came out of a grinder bracket. They were looking like the champions they are, and I don’t see why anyone would think any different. We certainly didn’t have it easy during our tournament journey, not just because of our opponents but because of ourselves. If we could fix the one or two mistakes we kept making, if we could process the scramble a little quicker, and keep our guns hot winning the breakout… we could win the event. That’s what I was telling myself. Yes, that is a lot of things when going up against the dragon but at no point was I doubtful that we would do these things. We must, there is no other way to win. That’s the difference maker in the pro division… processing speed and mistake free paintball. Usually, the person who makes the first mistake pays for it.
I have heard the speculation that the moment might have been too much for us. Whereas it is true this is our first trip to a finals match in the pro division, it isn’t our first trip to a finals match. My guys did not feel any different than before any other match. Yes, it was for all the marbles. Didn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter who we play or when we play them, we have to win. Its so simple and people who make that part of the game, I get it… but it wasn’t an issue here. Again, I can understand those who thought it might have played a part.
I do want to address something that I heard over and over again this past week or so. Why did we go defensive against Dynasty when we were up points? I have a question in return… what match were you watching? It wasn’t that we went defensive. Dynasty’s guns got hot on the break and our processing slowed down. They shot our attack on the break. And our “attacks” were injured too. My hat is off to my ones who were running their butts off and giving me everything I asked of them and then some. Now, if you want to say we squandered some opportunities to have additional offense/aggression, that is where we will have common ground. That is essentially where our “foot came off the gas” but I wouldn’t say we were defensive. We gave every ounce of what we had left… and made some mistakes in the scramble. If you really want to dumb it down, it came down to two points. Choose any two points of regulation that we lost, give me one guy that stays alive for 5-6 seconds longer… and we would win 4-3 in regulation. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. It wasn’t our time. But we will get there.
Proud of my guys. They played well. They recognize what is in front of them this season. It will not be easy. As Jocko Willink would say, “Good…”
Lao Tzu said that, “The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” The Canes are aware now. And we are redefining our goals for the season.
Our journey is never ending. There has to be growth, there has to be improvement. And it will most certainly come with and from some adversity. We have to live in each of these moments and learn from them. We must strive to do what is right and virtuous… the winning will come.
“If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second…” – Cicero
Disaster? Calamity? Disappointment? Bust? The fact of the matter is, none of these words meet the threshold of emotion all of us felt during and after this event. The catastrophic failure this team experienced at the World Cup was heartbreaking to say the least. So much so, I was half tempted to simply post our game footage on this blog and let it speak for itself. But I love this team too much not to address what happened. This blog will not be the event recap I normally do, taking you through each match, each point, and the thought process behind it all. Rather, this will be an examination of what I believe went wrong and led to such a abhorrent and frustrating event.
I have lost count of texts, phone calls, DMs, etc. from others asking me what happened… what went wrong. For some, I gave the straight forward, logical answer – failure to execute the game plan in a professional and disciplined manner conflated with a total and utter lack of communication and understanding of the situation. For others, I gave a more simplistic response because I didn’t want to continually vomit the team’s list of blunders – the guys just weren’t playing well or together.
When you and your team have worked hard to develop a system of structure and processes that have led to achieving several successes and goals, it can be difficult to swallow when something like this event transpires. However, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have overcome countless adversities since beginning my tenure as coach of the New Orleans Hurricanes. It didn’t matter the obstacle or dilemma, we always met any and all issues with the same efficacy, the same energy, and way more often than not, we overcame the issue(s). And we almost always did so as a unit, it was never an individual achievement. A tip of the spear warrior like indomitable approach to problem solving. We trust each other indefinitely, and this has created an internal confidence that isn’t outwardly exuded nor commonly noticed. Don’t be fooled into thinking our humility isn’t a strength. It’s our trust and honesty with one another that has propelled us to where we are. And here is some now…
As field owner Drew Bankston said at the event, “You guys are built for this.” He is right. We are built to reach our goals. We are built to continually improve. We are built to play a practical, tactical, and strategic game of paintball at a high level. And we are built to overcome adversity.
But sometimes, WE are that adversity. We can’t help but get in our own way. We create a lot of our own problems. And once the team figures out how to remove that one gnawing flaw, we are going to move from being a pretty damn good paintball team to a great one. Not that we aren’t now, but we can ALWAYS be better. Like my friend Ryan Gray says, don’t be better… just be good.
So, what is the answer to what happened? Whereas it can certainly be summed up as poor discipline and bad execution of the game plan… WHY did that happen? What were the elements and variables that were present at this event that weren’t at the last 4 events? As a coach, it is my job to, not only recognize and address the latitude and trajectories that led to our poor performance, but to ensure they don’t happen again.
We have to go back to the beginning on our quest for understanding. Headed into this event, coming off a 5th place finish in Chicago, we were finally whole again. We were healed up and everyone was in a good place. Sure, the pressures of life is constant but none of us were in a place any different than any of the other events. For all intents and purposes, being back to 100% with the entire roster good to go, this was primed to be an excellent event for us. No, personnel was good. Not the issue.
How was our layout practice preparation? Was that an issue? It wasn’t that we didn’t know how to play the field. We did. The game plans and understanding of the field were there. Do I feel it had the pressure testing we have been used to this past season? If I am being honest, no. And that is on me. It is one thing to know that the field is going to play a certain way, it is another to know it will be played a certain way by our specific opponents. But understanding that is completely different from playing, seeing, and being tested against it in real time. Real data and seeing those tactical approaches live, creating that scenario paintball, having those approaches executed on you regularly and consistently is vital. Could this have been part of our problem? I will say yes, it certainly played a role into it but it was, by no means, all or even a majority of it. Notice how I say “part of OUR problem”. That is intentional because it isn’t an excuse…it is recognizing that we created some adversity for ourselves.
*Zen Note – congratulations to Columbus LVL, our practice partner for this event, on their Sunday appearance! Well done gentlemen!
I do want to address some comments I received about part of our problem being that we didn’t participate in the 7-3 format exhibition on Wednesday. Whereas, I certainly agree that the teams who participated had an advantage with additional looks and were warmed up for the next days play, we didn’t see it as necessity. You have to weigh matters when considering these things. We were way more banged up in Chicago than we let on and we had just gotten healthy. I needed everyone to remain healthy through World Cup and taking the risk of injury prior to the actual event itself didn’t make sense at the time. Couple this with the fact we are a self funded team, that additional expense of entry and paint just wasn’t in the cards. Those two major factors were enough for us to decide not to participate. We also saw it as an advantage to scout and see if our theories on how the field would play were accurate, as well as obtain data on our opponents. Hindsight being 20/20, sure it would have been advantageous, but you play the cards you are dealt.
*Zen Note – We did opt for a quick practice with the Lucky 15’s. Great sparring partner for the day before to warm up our guns and give each other feedback. By the way, congratulations to them as well for their Sunday appearance!
Okay, so perhaps our practice/preparation played a small role in our performance but I still think that was not the major factor that led to this dismal performance. My guys are highly intelligent paintball players and recognized what needed to happen. And it didn’t.
It wasn’t the paint. I personally tested the paint (which I do every event and anyone who knows me or has seen my process knows I am a paint snob for lack of a better term). The paint shot great all weekend. BUT… we were not hitting our shots on the break like we were at practice. We had solid guns on the break against LVL the weekend before and that continued on the Wednesday practice against the 15’s… so no, it wasn’t the paint but our lanes, which we are known for, weren’t there consistently. And that is the whole purpose for the team to have the 1 hour practice the day before, get those dialed in the day before. Have to chalk this up as an element.
We can’t blame the penalties. Sure, maybe one or two of them were thrown a little sooner than normal but for the most part, I didn’t see any that under the rules, shouldn’t have been a penalty. You get hit in the hopper and don’t know it? Yeah, that’s a minor. You get hit in the pack and didn’t know it? Yeah, that’s a minor. No, you can’t blame penalties. And any team that does is missing the bigger picture. Though, I must admit, the amount we got this event was greater than our combined total for the last two years. It was as if we were “forcing it”. And that can lead to mistakes. Usually, penalties like that and as often as that usually lends to a lack of focus by the players, at least in my experience. Okay, maybe we are onto something here…
What can we look at next? The psychology or mind set? Psychologically, as I stated earlier, we all seemed squared away. It wasn’t overconfidence or looking past anyone. We treat every match as if we are playing Dynasty. Our mindset has always been nothing is given, it must be earned. What was happening mentally that may have taken a toll? Was it the pressure of the moment? Possibly. If so, I’m not in my guys heads as much as I thought apparently because I don’t believe the moment has ever gotten to us. I have had countless conversations on the topic over the years that are to the contrary, and have seen no signs that elude to the pressure of the moment ever being an issue at this event or any other event for that matter. Unless something is being hidden and I don’t think that is the case as we have always been incredibly open with each other about happenings in each others’ lives.
Drew Bankston – Field Owner of LA Xtreme in Slidell, LA
What other variables or elements may have occurred or were present that was out of the norm? Could it have been that we had several wives, girlfriends, children, and parents staying under the same roof with us? Quite possibly. I know on every team I had coached prior, we had a standing rule, no significant others until after prelims. The team stays together and does everything together. No exceptions. And after discussing with several other coaches, it would appear this is the standard by which most teams abide. But here’s where I doubt this one. We have had wives, girlfriends, children and parents at other events this year and we did fine. No, we were not all under the same roof, and no, it wasn’t all of them (just a few), but they were present at the event or even in the pit. So there is a flaw in that theory. But it may still be valid. And who am I to tell a grown man paying his own way that he can’t bring family? Was that the issue? Were we in “vacation” mode? Distracted from the event at hand thinking about our loved ones and their safety/fun? Perhaps the answer is, the team all stay together and everyone else stays together somewhere else or arrives later? Maybe I implement that next year… I don’t know. Certainly a topic of discussion heading into next season that must be had. Because I can’t think of anything else that may have added to lost focus.
When I come to these events, my focus is the performance of the team. I need to put my players in the best possible position to succeed. We work hard prior to and during the event. I don’t come to events with any other intent than to win and put our best foot forward. We are spending a lot of money and time to participate in this sport and play at this level. This is not a vacation for me and I have never looked at it that way. If anything, it is additional stress but it is with people I love and that’s why i do it. The passion of the game and the comradery. I love being around my guys and I honestly hate that we all don’t live closer together. There is no one else I would rather win with. You know, because winning is fun. And we need to remember that. I love each and everyone of them and their families. And I love what we have created together. And that we include the families because they sacrifice a lot too. Balance will be the key.
Where does this leave us? Deductive reasoning, unless told otherwise by my guys (which at the time of this writing has not happened obviously), we need to shore up our event prep, pressure test ourselves more against top level teams, and limit distractions at the event. But ultimately it was our lack off communication, lack of discipline, and lack of execution that cost us. No one and no one thing is to blame other than ourselves. That’s it. Done. Move on and fix it.
Ultimately, the answer to this is simple… It comes down to a failure of leadership. It falls on me. It starts at the top and no one understands this better than me. “Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan.” I have to do better. Whatever the causes, I either missed them, didn’t recognize them in time, or if I did, I chose the wrong solution. The journey of a leader/coach/captain is never ending. There must be growth, there must be the constant quest for improvement, and there must be a determination to overcome adversity. If I can continue to do what is right… if I can continue to grow in this role as my team grows, if we can live in the moment and truly recognize what that means… then we should be fine. I would much rather chase continuous improvement than perfection. A harsh lesson that was heard loud and clear. It is time to OODA loop! (my military friends will know…). Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. I will save this for a future blog.
If you haven’t had a chance to see this great vid produced by Planet Eclipse about the New Orleans Hurricanes, here is the link. Go check it out, give it a like and share. Also, be sure to like and subscribe to the https://www.facebook.com/thecoachesshow where Ryan and I will bring you the latest and greatest news, stories, and analysis in paintball.
The NXL’s Mid Atlantic open was June 17th-19th. The next NXL event (not counting the Golden State Open) was the Windy City Major held last month near Chicago from Sept 9-11. There was a 12 week, or an approximate 3 month time frame between the Mid Atlantic and the Windy City events.
In paintball, that’s a long time.
So, what are the Professional teams doing during those 3 months? If you are the New Orleans Hurricanes, you are working your day job (in some cases, two jobs), ensuring your career is still on track, taking care of family and significant others, balancing the checkbook, paying bills and taxes, and then shoring up individual and team paintball skill sets at every opportunity. Because we are so spread out as a team, members get to the field when they can to work drills and teamwork. If a member of the team can’t make a practice, they are practicing local to where they are.
The everyday life grind coupled with the paintball grind can be difficult. Priorities for one tend to interfere with priorities for the other. And that is understandable. After all, this is the only professional sport that I know of where the pros (or at least a large portion of them) must pay to play at this level. We are husbands, fathers, sons, and men first. Our priority and ultimate responsibility is to our loved ones. We must be solid and good on that front first and foremost before we can be solid and good on the field. I truly believe this is one of the Hurricanes strengths. Our support system is a large part of our relative success.
Focus. One voice at a time. What’s the goal and how do we execute/accomplish it?
Okay, but what can we do when your team’s focus appears to be a little blurry? What can you do if the life grind is interfering more than usual with the paintball grind? How do you maintain the team’s focus?
How many of you are familiar with the 80/20 rule? Also known as the “Pareto Principle”. It essentially means that, 80% of your results come from about 20% of your work. More specifically that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes (or inputs) for any given event. So how do we apply this? It should be obvious, we should focus on that 20%… work the stuff that matters and don’t get distracted by the feeling of “we have to”. In other words, we should prioritize the 20% of factors that will produce the best results. Logical, yes? But it isn’t always seen that way by a good many…
I see teams fall into this trap quite often. They over plan. Whereas, having a plan to begin with is important, and most certainly helps with goal setting, direction, and success, it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Do not create an environment where, if you don’t do something, it will cause the team to feel they are not prepared. No need to hamstring the team by developing a “to do” list that isn’t manageable or practical. It isn’t necessary to get too detailed. Understand, details are terrific and important but it is a fine line that must be walked. If we get too detailed, we can get bogged down and miss out on what the real issues are or will be. Efficiency is key. Try not to do something just because other’s do it. Focus on what YOUR team needs. Is this making sense?
Focusing on teamwork and execution of job sets will lead to success.
All that said, try to identify your team’s key needs and best assets. Then try to shore them up in an efficient manner so you get the maximum value added. Now… this is a concept. A rule rather and not a law. What do I mean by this? Don’t make the mistake of thinking that since the 20% gets priority, then the other 80% can be ignored!
We should also recognize the difference between individual and team planning. As I sated earlier, efficient use of time is really the key to all of this. When we do have the time together as a team, I want to emphasize very specific team-oriented material as opposed to the individual aspects. I might mention to an individual player something I see or want them to work on at a team practice and will keep it in the mental Rolodex (maybe discuss during a short break but not spend a lot of time on it)… but the emphasis is, and always will be, on the team dynamic when we are together. This isn’t to say that individual attention doesn’t happen. It most certainly and almost always does. However, at this level, the individual issues are usually smaller or fewer and less dire.
I will almost always have a specific agenda in mind and time frame for each item on the agenda before a practice. However, that agenda is fluid in case I see something that needs to be re-emphasized. The domino effect is very real at practice.
What do I mean by the domino effect? Well, it’s the whole point of this blog. Staying focused on the goals can easily be derailed if we allow things to fall off or pile up. We get off on a tangent and now the tangent becomes the focus as opposed to the intended goal. At the end of the day, you can’t always control the results. But you can most certainly control your effort to meet them and focus on them.
When you get down to it, your team is simply a collection of people with a common interest (hopefully). Not to get too high brow but I was recently reading a little Thomas Hobbes. He nailed the concept, at least in my opinion, of what a team is in his book “Leviathan” (well, really government or an organization of civilization… social contract theory… what have you). He uses the concept of the biblical Leviathan, a giant sea serpent, as a metaphor for the state. Essentially the creature’s body is a giant body made up of ALL the bodies of its citizens in the literal sense. The same concept can be applied to a team. Team, very similar to the different states here in the US, are made up 3 components; the people, the processes, and their systems.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Aristotle
Focus on what you can control.
Ultimately, my main goal for the Canes at a practice is to function as one. How can we be more efficient and ensure we are all rowing in the right direction with the same desire or outcome in mind? Our focus – acting as one, a single entity with very specific goals in mind. What do WE need? Having everyone on the same page is as simple as getting everyone to agree to a very specific list of goals. Then create acceptance and agreement among the team on how best to get there… as a team. Identifying and developing focus for the team can be finite. But alignment on all of it is paramount.
You have all heard the line, “Trust the process”. If the process leads to small successes over time then it is having the desired effect.
So stay focused on the task at hand, whatever that may be.
The first event of the NXL 2022 season is just four weeks away. Building off last month’s blog, I have continued to received even more questions about my personal thoughts on
1. How well I think we will do
2. How we will prepare
3. What we think about the draw
All legitimate questions and I am happy to answer them to my best ability one on one. However, let me answer as best I can right here:
1 – Simply, we will do our best. And that can mean a lot of things. We have a tough road ahead of us on several fronts. And we will meet it with the same vigor and aggression as before and then some.
2 – We will prepare as we always have: thorough study of layout, apply our strengths to said layout, and develop what we feel is the best approach to game-planning and execution dependent on layout/opponent.
3 – It’s a tough one. Say what you will about recent events, Impact still has tremendous talent. Their depth is substantial and they will have an axe to grind. Reports have Russian Legion back to full strength. That’s scary as hell for any team in the division. We know AC Diesel well and those cats are hungry. They were a semi pro team just 3 years ago and are a top 10 team already. And you can never look past Uprising. They have plenty of weapons on that team. They were a top 10 team as recently as 2019. So yeah, baptism by fire is coming.
It’s interesting because no one really cared when we were Semi-Pro. As a matter of fact, there is a large faction of NXL pro fans who still don’t know we are a professional team. That’s on us. We haven’t done a very good job with our brand. That will change. And it will change because we have decided we need to make that change. Us… the New Orleans Hurricanes. We decided to do better. So we are doing our best to up our exposure. We have decided as a team to take a positive approach to this new endeavor. And this is where we build off last months blog.
Last month we discussed developing SMART goals and how they can lend to creating a positive mental attitude… this month we will talk about what that positive mental attitude looks like from my perspective and how I think others should create or incorporate into their routine and, in essence, practice it.
Competitive Paintball teams devote hours upon hours of practice to honing their skills. At least, serious ones do. The physical aspect of our game requires a lot of training. Talent within that aspect of the game can take players pretty far. But only SO far. There needs to be several other components such as communication, teamwork, chemistry… But something that is occasionally overlooked and required (in my opinion) to maximize a player’s (and team’s) true potential is having a positive mental attitude.
Do you believe any elite players in any sport are successful because they hate what they are doing or have a negative perception of themselves, their team, or their capabilities? Positivity can be that force multiplier to get you where you want or need to be. Physical and mental energy, whether low or high, can and will affect how well you ultimately perform. So why wouldn’t we take note of it?
I believe in a positive culture but one that is ruled by accountability. When you have a negative Nancy culture that’s all finger pointing, no affirmation, dissing each other, and a coach yelling… well… yeah, sometimes that environment can create growth but only for so long. Negativity can promote a drive, sure… but not for the right reasons usually.
Being optimistic is not necessarily the same as being positive but it certainly can help. I try to build my guys up and I encourage each and everyone of them to do the same. Now, to be clear, should a mistake be made, and made again… and again… well, this is where the accountability “fail-safe” kicks in. Positivity is obviously not working… now it’s time for tough love. But be honest in that tough love and be sincere.
So what are some of the things that affect us in a negative way? Besides the obvious, like injuries, making the wrong read, giving bad data/communication during a game that costs you the point or match… think there is anything else?
For me, I sometimes get adversely affected by something I read or perhaps a family friend’s troubles (or my own) or all sorts of awful things present in the outside world (of paintball). But I have taught myself to recognize that and try not to bring that into my “other world”. I don’t always succeed and when I don’t, I make sure my guys know. And they usually know too before I say something.
One of the ways I use to defeat the negative creep is by (stand by for something that is going to sound crazy in 3…2…1…) talking to myself. I’ll turn my thoughts around and pump myself up by reminding myself of who I am, where I come from, why I am here in the first place. Or sometimes it is as simple as saying one of my family’s traditional Christian prayers. You can make one of your own – create a “catch phrase” or maybe words from one of your favorite songs, hell, listen to the damn thing if you have one of those little boxes with earphones that plays music (phones can do that now too, yeah?). When I’m feeling particularity spicy, I’ll reach back into the old man’s repertoire… I have been quoting Conan the Barbarian for quite awhile (movie came out in 84 I believe):
“Conan, what is best in life?” “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”
Of course, sometimes just seeing my teammates lifts me up. Just takes that one to realize the camaraderie you have with these men.
Anyway, I find this an effective way to manage any negativity that can get in the way of me doing my job well.
As a matter of fact, research has shown that this technique not only helps reduce anxiety but effectively improves performance. Constant practice of this over a long period of time was shown to be more effective than just physical training alone. Start incorporating it into your training. You will be glad you did.
How many of you have used visualization? I talk about this all the time and tell my guys before each match to play the game in their heads. Visualize what you will see, what you will do, how you will do it, what it will all look like. I use to do this all the time when I was on the field. Still do actually… that is when I find myself on the field which is rare these days. Something I hope to remedy.
A positive attitude can not only help you stay motivated but help you meet any anxiety you may have head on. Listen, it doesn’t happen overnight. As with all change, it can take time. But I promise having a good attitude vs a bad one will positively affect your performance. Create that new mindset and see where it takes you.
Thinking positively before an upcoming and important match is a necessity to grow whether you win, lose, or draw. Self-affirmations have to be there. You have to believe you belong there. You have to believe you earned it. And that is what we will do in preparation for the first NXL event.
We did earn it. We do belong here. And we are going to do our best to be a positive force in the NXL pro division.
I value positive mental attitudes. I currently have 10 under me. All 10 know how to pump themselves up. All 10 know how to control their demeanor. All 10 have confidence in themselves and each other. And all 10 trust me and each other. That’s powerful stuff. But that is only half the battle. It will require us executing, playing as a team, communicating, hitting our shots… but you gotta start somewhere. You have to believe that you can do all those things. And if things go south? Okay – what did we learn? We know where we stand and we will just have to work harder and harder…
Failure is not a catastrophic end. At least not in this sport. But it can be a powerful motivator… as long as you stay positive about it.
Zen and the Art of Paintball 