“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it isn’t the end.” – John Lennon
That quote came up in the daily quote I am subscribed to. It was the first thing I checked this morning when I got up early to start this blog. I find it fascinating since I experienced a new phenomenon this past week after the event. And I have Alex Fraige and Ryan Greenspan to thank for it.
Stoicism teaches that everything you do can be partitioned into two components: One component is completely up to you, the things you can control. The other are those components which you cannot control – or rather, outcomes that are derived from external factors beyond your control. And the Stoics believed you should focus all of your energy on the first component… things you can control. One should also develop an attitude of equanimity toward the things you can’t control… sometimes things go in your favor, and sometimes they don’t. I read recently that it isn’t a reflection of who you are but a reflection that the universe works in strange and mysterious ways. Of course, I also have my faith so, which teaches that there is purpose for everything.
The reason I bring this up is because several teams I have coached over the years would get frustrated when the wins wouldn’t come. I developed a way to address that by implementing a “we didn’t lose if we learned from it” approach. If we learned something or it made us better in some way, we were good and we would leverage that to be better prepared next time. Some may not agree with that thought process… some may think “if you ain’t first, your last!” I get it. I think any person with a competitive bone in their body “gets it”. But you can’t look at every event where you didn’t win (especially in paintball) as a failure or a black mark… That would leave 11 pro teams over the last 10 years and COUNTLESS divisional teams depressed and/or wanting (and in a lot of cases, dissolved).
But I digress… I’ll start with Alex. He has done a great job of reminding me to “have fun”. Enjoy the process, enjoy the ride, enjoy the journey we are on together. Cherish the moments we get to spend to together playing the game we love. And I am truly thankful to him for that. I do take this too serious sometimes. This passion and love of the sport should never become or feel like work, and sometimes, I let it. But as I explained to him, there’s a deep rooted story as to why. Still, his message was heard and I need to appreciate where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going with this team. So far, it has been a truly educational process and I am quite appreciative of that.
And then there is Ryan (and Alex for that matter too). They don’t see this event as a failure or a bad event for the team. Rather, there were positive take-aways. For example, and I don’t want to put words in his mouth bu Ryan simply sees it as (I’m paraphrasing here), “Okay, we dropped the ball here and here… let’s not do that next time. Let’s refocus and just win the next one.” It sounds so simple but it is quite profound in a myriad of ways. Especially when you look back, consider, and really understand why that attitude exists in him and the other members of Dynasty. I certainly get it. And I’m here for it.
I wanted to share that real quick because it has had a good effect on me. My family has even noticed.
Alright, let’s talk about the event. Again, I won’t do the whole play by play. Honestly, I think this gave people too much insight when I have done this previously (I’m kidding… but not really). I will certainly give you an overview of each match against each team.
Before I forget though, I do want to send a shout out to Major League Paintball for an outstanding venue. Best playing surface for an event in a long, long time. Nothing you can do about the temperatures. That was an anomaly (you can look it up… the average temperature in mid to southern OH in June is a high of 83, low of 62).
VS SEADOGS
I won’t tell you I wasn’t a little anxious about this match prior to Friday. The reason being a combination of the layout and the Seadogs penchant to press. They are solid gunfighters and have some weapons for sure. They are a smart and quick team. However, we had a chance to scout them prior to playing them (insert argument about better to have a warm up match or scout your opponent here). They would match up against Damage and only play 4 points. The Seadogs seemed to like what we were calling “redundancies”… two guys doing the same job purposefully. The one point they won against Damage seemed to show they weren’t confident with snake attack set up nor any willingness to risk any dorito attack.
I would run two lines this match. I was getting production from almost everyone at practice and I thought this would be a great opportunity to give guys spins and the opportunity to expound beyond their practice performance. I must admit, I love the problem of having a tough time deciding who will play. Not to mention, the two lines can help keep legs fresh when its time to run the horses for the event.
The first point that argument for a warm up match came into play. The Seadogs guns were hot. They won the break but we tied it back up pretty quickly making it a 3v3. Arturo and Blake knew the drill and press snake way. Ryan intelligently and craftily spreads the field dorito way. Coordinated effort, constant pressure, and crossfield comms won us that point.
And that would be the match for the most part. The Seadogs redundancies would pause their rotation while we would press ours, be first into position, and keep pressure. We would shoot one of theirs on the break 60% of the time which certainly helped. Our snake side developed faster and we usually snuck out wide D side to create additional uncertainty of threat. Again, great cross field comms from my guys. The one point we lost, it was a bloodbath break for both teams with quick first engagement deaths by both teams bringing it to a 3v3… and then we got a minor.
Kyle Barry laying it down.
VS ARSENAL
Baltimore Arsenal (Formerly Baltimore Revo) has solid depth on their 8 person roster. An intelligent and creative team, they put it on us in Atlantic City. We weren’t about to let that happen again. Similar to Seadogs, we didn’t get to see much from scouting their first match against Aftermath… 3 points. They did seem to have some tells we would exploit. Ultimately, we would focus on what we would do, not what they were doing. This field was about creating opportunities and I have some of the best in the game for that sort of thing.
Similar to the Seadogs match, we would score the first 3 points in a row. First point, they would help us by getting a minor, we would spread and Yosh would clean up. Second, they used O’mara cleverly to win the break but on the next phase of their dastardly and nefarious plan, they were cut short when Dany got into snake 3 quickly and caught O’mara (Dany was a class act. He could have tattooed his name on O’mara and did not). Harrison was wide on the break too. Point conceded when they lost their snake 3. Third point, our guns on break were stellar taking two off the board from the rip. 12 seconds after the start of the point it is conceded.
We would lose the next two points, the second point loss being quite bogus. The first point, we lost Arturo off break and then shortly after Ryan. However, the remaining 3 peel 3:30 off the clock holding. The second point, there was a gross major called on Blake. Ref contended that, while Blake was loading, he got shot in the pod, and then he chunked it. That pulled all our bodies and automatically swung a point to Arsenal. Upon review by Jason Trosen, he confirmed it should NOT have been a gross major,and that Blake did not get shot and throw it. Regardless, there isn’t anything that can be done at that point…. Unfortunate now that it was a 1 point game with 3:37 on the clock.
Where we lost those two points, one being just unlucky, we would now turn around and rattle off two wins to take the match. The first involved a little luck our way and some incredible composure by Yosh. My man! And winning some gunfights. The second point, Yosh again had a force field but this time takes O’mara and stayed alive, then got another, and then Arturo snuck onto their side to take the final point with 4 seconds left.
Harrison Frye had an event playing lights out for the Dragon.
VS AFTERMATH
After scouting Aftermath, not to mention the fact they have been a solid scrimmage partner, we felt confident in our game plans for them, too. Though, they would give us a rather difficult match. We would win the first point by shooting two on the break followed by two more quick first engagement kills. 24 second later, they would towel. However, the very next point, Blake would put his hiney to high in the air, we would lose Kyle shortly after, and then a rather odd minor call on Alex. Aftermath would not squander that high body situation tying the game up at 1 a piece.
Interestingly enough, we would go on another 3 point run. It started after we got a penalty the very next point but this time, the Avocado Twins (Joe Barret and Harrison Frye) would pull off a 2 on 4! Very impressive. Pretty sure Joe got a 4 pack on that one. We won the break on the next, developed quickly and just started chopping them up. The third point, Aftermath returned the favor on the break shooting Blake, but Harrison got wide dorito way, Joe anchored it down, and Arturo with Ryan behind him were set up to either kill clock or turn the field. Ultimately, we won the war of attrition.
It was 4-1 with 1:36 on the clock. Aftermath had to send it, and we know this. I thought it would be clever to show Alex and then run him to the corner. Alex got clipped so that’s on me. Though we ended up losing Dany in an engagement shortly after. Aftermath put another on the board with a well coordinated press. They did it with 31 seconds left. The next point both teams break out, we kill one on the break… match.
Alex Fraige still making people pay after 25 years
VS DAMAGE
This would mark the 1st time we would face Damage in prelims this season but the 3rd time out of 3 events we would play them. We knocked them out in the Quarters at the 1st event (Tampa Bay). We would knock them out again in the Quarters in Atlantic City. This time, we were aiming to send them home in the prelims. They were 2-1 headed into this match but not with a strong margin. We were 3-0. This match would decide if we won the bracket and sent them home, or we would both move on to Sunday.
After scouting their 3 matches and using a new scouting method developed by Brad and Junior, we felt prepared for what Damage was bringing. We had good box calls, a good game plan, and fresh legs. Guys were ready. Chad Busiere was playing well for them up the middle so we would have to address him for sure. It would be back and forth the first 4 points. They won the first point with good guns on break (miscue on gun placement by me). We won the second with a productive center presence, Harrison getting wide, and Arturo’s pressure. They won the 3rd point when we got a penalty dropping our snake side and Chad took full advantage of that. And we won the 4th after we traded blows on the break with Yosh winning the center war, which allowed us to get wide on both sides and squeeze.
The match was tied at 2 each with 8:37 left in the game. It was that 5th point where we showed a play that we thought, once scene, everyone would start using it. Much to our surprise, no one did. Anyway, this set up worked absolutely flawlessly and the guys executed it almost to perfection, especially Yosh. I wish I could take credit for its creation but I can’t. This was the brain child of Mr. Greenspan from the evening before. I’ll take credit for calling it at that moment but man, what a design. And with the way Yosh started the point and the way Blake closed it… awesome.
The next point I felt was the nail in the coffin really. Probably premature but sometimes you just know. We win the break by killing the 2 behind Keith Brown (Jacob?)who took the snake on the break and sent Chad back up the center. We matched them with Yosh up the gut and Harrison wide D side again which means they HAVE to be weary of him. Damage does a good job of matching and adjusting as the point grinds. Keith Brown made that 50 wedge past the snake 3… Yosh recognized that he is either waiting to die or trade. He took fate into his own hands and imposed his will by going forward, shooting Chad, then turning and dicing up Keith! Marcello tries to save the point but ran into Harrison’s gun leaving just former teammate Chris Schehr alive who was quickly tapped out.
Damage came out aggressively and similar to their last point. Keith to snake, Chad up the gut, with intent to press the snake side rotation. They set up well and got position. However, it was now our turn to use some redundancy. Ryan and Blake stalled out the snake side press of Damage, Joe Barret just kept a steady stream of paint on the outside of Schehr, while Harry kept paint in the center gap which doubled as paint on the inside of Schehr. At under 3 minutes, Blake makes the decision to go offensive and I have to say, I kinda dug it. Granted, it allows some new secondaries from Damage but now they know he is in that S3 and have to do something about it. All off this happened with just over 2 minutes left in the match. Regrettably, Chris Scherh breaks the point open by getting Harrison and Blake. 1:23 on the clock, 4-3, Dyansty in the lead by 1.
We lost Yosh on the break of the next and last point but he trades with his cross field counter. 4 v 4 but our zone control picks up their snake dive. 4 vs 3 at 1 minute. Chad crawled to our snake wedge, but Ryan saw it. Though Ryan lost the initial exchange, Harrison saw this go down and put a ball on Chad. 3 on 2 favor Dynasty with just over 30 seconds left. Blake’s voice continues to cut through as I hear him all the way in the pits. He knows the situation, which means his teammates Harrison and Arturo know the situation too. They picked up Chris leaving just Marcello who they clipped at 17 seconds allowing us to get the final point.
3 for 3 against Damage on the season. I have a feeling there will be a 4th and probably a 5th as well. Kevin, Joey, and the boys will most certainly be fired up for our next one.
Arturo giving everything he’s got. This man doesn’t know how not to give 100%
QUARTER FINALS VS HOUSTON HEAT
I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I am a Heat fan. I love this new line up and it is no secret I am a pretty big fan of Ryan Moorehead and Sam Monville (Shout out to Sam’s mother, Dorothy!). Dude, you can’t ignore Ronnie Dizon’s youtube channel (I wish I had his social media talent). Chad George is arguably one of the best in the game and I personally believe that their three pick ups in the off season was pretty smart.
That being said, I felt we were playing the field better. We had good scouting on them, had a good understanding of their game plan, good box calls… everything said, at least to me, this would be a fight but we would be victorious. But that was not to be the case.
It happens to the best. I know because I watched it happen to my guys. Sometimes you just get “dinked”. I am not taking ANYTHING away from Heat. We had not played against that disciplined of a team yet this event and they executed their game plan well. I just felt our plan was better… but then, just goes to show, you still have to land the shots and not get shot. Congratulations to Heat for a match well played. I don’t mind losing to a good team like that.
Dont’ get me wrong, I legitimately felt it was going to be us and the Russians in the finals. At least.. that would have been optimum I think. Meh… it is neither here nor there. We control what we can control.
And what I can control is how my team will be ready for Texas. See you there.
The 2025 Atlantic City Open was one for the books with some pretty incredible things happening. PB Fit won their 3rd event in a row after slipping into Sunday on a wildcard bid. They were in the “Texas Bracket” as I was akin to call it. They finished prelim competition with a 2-2 record handily beating Infamous by mercy rule and putting up a tough win against NRG Elite 6-4 (another story I will get to). They lost to the two other teams based out of Texas, AC Diesel (6-3) and X-Factor (5-3). X-Factor won the bracket going undefeated and garnering the direct shot into Quarter finals. Diesel would drop one to X-Factor in preliminary match up play and take the 7th seed entering the Ochos to face off against… you guessed it, PBFit. But it would be a different story this time. PB Fit would mercy rule Diesel 6-0 giving them the opportunity to face off against… yep, you guessed it again, X-Factor. And in an incredible turn of events, Fit would go on to mercy rule X-Factor 7-1, as well. In the semi finals, they would slow down the Red Legion who was averaging 8 points played per match, beating them 4-2. And finally, or perhaps I should say, “Finalement” (that’s French see…), they would beat Ton Tons in a double overtime match that went to 1v1’s that ended with Scott Stewart shooting Axil Guadin. If Axil didn’t slip on his way to the buzzer at the end of regulation, we may have had our first European team win in America….
I think it is worth mentioning that NRG Elite, after losing all 4 preliminary matches in overtime at the Tampa Bay event, continued that streak in Atlantic City losing their first 2 preliminary matches on Friday by one, all in overtime, too. On Saturday, they would lose to Infamous by 1 (but not in overtime) and be dealt their final blow against Fit losing 6-4. Besides setting some sort of record (most consecutive losses in OT), they are actually showing some real promise. They are in all their games, they just can’t seem to get over the finish line. It’s coming though.
Leverage, who won their pro spot out of Semi Pro, continues to struggle taking their second last place finish in a row. This event was particularly harsh as they only managed to score 1 point the entire event (Saturday in their Ton Ton match where they lost 3-1). I understand they are missing 2 or 3 starters. Hopefully they will have them back in Cincinnati and we will get to see what they are truly capable of. The team took 2nd in Semi Pro behind Leverage, and who bought their spot in the pro division, the Royal City Sea Dogs, finished this event 16th. They had a 15th place event finish in Tampa. In Tampa, they went 1-3 beating ASG Aftermath, and at this latest event in AC, they went 1-3, beating Seattle Uprising.
Baltimore Arsenal showed up and out winning their bracket ahead of Dynasty and Heat, but then losing in quarters final to finish in 5th place. A vast improvement over their 15th place finish in Tampa. Chicago Aftershock bonus balled their way to missing Sunday again going 1-3 and taking 14th, a drop from just missing the cut in Tampa where they placed 11th. Impact was mercied by the Red Legion in quarter final play taking 8th, a surprising drop from their 3rd in Tampa.
Okay, let’s get into it about Dynasty. We will do things a bit different for this one. Whereas, I normally go point by point, I want to do more of a high level recap of our performance during the match ups. We will see how this goes. This field played to a center presence with a heavy dorito push touched off with an opportunistic snake attack. Most teams played that hand. You needed to have a good gun fighter with high survivability in that snake side can. You could use “paranoia” to slow or cause hesitation on this field. Most teams would launch offensive or counter punches from the pocket. Dynasty wouldn’t be much different since it was the appropriate way to play the field in my opinion. Sure, there were plays in the play book that didn’t look this way. And they would be there if needed… but they weren’t often needed.
VS Baltimore Arsenal
When asked if I would rather have the opportunity to scout a team or have a warm up match, I would prefer the warm up match. There are advantages to both. We had a chance to scout Arsenal as they played (and beat) Houston Heat. They played a pocket game and we felt confident in how to beat that.
Penalties didn’t help though. That being said, even when we were down bodies, we knew to push. For example, that first point, we got a penalty but the remaining three knew how to address. It just didn’t work out.
This match we played down bodies and we over gun fought…a lot. In the few up body situations we had, we would throw a body away by either gun battling unnecessarily, not waiting or calling for help, forcing an issue or trying to create pressure alone. Lots of individual play during this match. Our tempo was off and the guys needed a few reminders of how we were going to play the field. For the record, the two points we won weren’t necessarily because we executed well. And the play call for the final point was busted when Arturo got a bad start. Good solid heads up and disciplined play from the Arsenal camp.
PS – Shout out to JC Whittington! We saw you!
VS CHICAGO AFTERSHOCK
We scouted Aftershock and felt confident heading into that match. We knew there would be some tom foolery but that was to be expected. No surprises there. They appeared to struggle with NYX meaning there were certainly chinks in their armor. We would attempt to exploit them.
I was happy to see that our guns on the break started showing up this match but we would still give bodies back. If you want to understand what happened that first point, we shot two off the break and killed a 3rd very quickly but lost two pretty quick as well. It’s a 3 on 2 and my guys hadn’t tracked that 3rd body that was gone. In other words, they thought it was a 3 v 3 still. They eventually figure it out though. Great close by Alex, Ryan, and Harrison. Great execution of the game plan on point 2 even with the early walk from my man Joe Barret. Joe had a tough go of it this match. 3 points in a row he got clapped forcing a move by not checking off. We had a quick chat, it wasn’t some rocket science talk, no… it was quite simple. Anyway, he got his stuff back together and showed it the last 3 points.
That penalty point was frustrating though. We had to start the 5th point down one because of a major on Arty during the 4th point. We argued that Ryan shot Hoskinson across field prior to his launch on Arturo. But the review showed Arturo was shot prior to Hoskinson’s launch. Dadnabbit. It was now tied 2 to 2 with a little under 7 minutes left… plenty of time.
I made a mistake here with my play call on the down body point. I even wrote it on my scout sheet – “mistake, bad play call”. I was trying to decide where we should be dynamic up the center. In doing so, I wasn’t clear about roles. We got the ground and created pressure early but lost eyes on snake. Of course, Aftershock does their bonus balling shtick. That was okay because the next point they get two minors allowing us to tie it up. And it would be all us the last two points anyway. That stuff may work on less experienced teams, it was just motivation for us. I think we made a joke about it the rest of the weekend.
Harry showed out on the second to last point. Great zone control followed by an excellent read from Harry to, for lack of a better term, decimate Shock that point. We take the lead 4-3 with abut 2:20 left on the clock. Lots of time left but now we’re feeling it. Shock presses the pace next point but we absorb their pressure and turn it on them. When Arturo smoked Hosky and the clock hit 1 minute, I knew it was in the bag. Joe had kept Thomas Kim contained since his arrival at the tower. This forces A-Rod to try and make something happen through the center but Harry dices him up. It’s a 3 on 1, we execute Kim at about 30 seconds and then grab the point after the clock went under 10 seconds.
VS NEW YORK XTREME
With our 1 and 1 record, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit I was hoping to run the score up on Xtreme. This would be our opportunity to pad margin. I was really pleased with our guns on the break again. We shot a body on the break almost every point (NYX survived the break out twice according to my notes). I got a little nervous at first as we tried really hard to throw the first point away. Inadvertent horn caused some confusion on that one as well. Shout out to my boy Timmy Roberts for making the NYX team and getting some spins. Smart call NYX.
We executed the game plan decently well this match. The plan was to get a body into dorito 3, follow him up with a second body to bully the single body from the opponent, shift a third that way to pass off the containment, and start peeling bodes cross field. All of this while our snake side stayed alive, keeping eyes on, and eventually taking an opportunity to feed the snake and close. If an opponent beats us to the snake, our goal shifts a little and we want to be in there with them. It was the paranoia of an opponent being in there with you that did more to slow you down than having a forward Can shooting down on all the knuckles (this wasn’t too bad a practice either). We do all this well on the second point. Not so much the third. We shifted tempos on that one a little. I wasn’t too upset with it but sometimes we over correct.
NYX put a point up on the board on the 5th point. We weren’t over gun fighting in this match but when we did gun fight, we were getting the better of it. There is just over 4 minutes on the clock. Plenty of time to pad the point spread. Shoot a guy on the break, successfully bully our way down the doritos, stay alive on the snake side. But then, we started throwing bodies away again. Frustrating. We almost gave Xtreme another point in the 7th. Thank goodness for my man, Blake Yarber. He literally held the line in a 2 on 1 from the back center and got us our 6th point. 57 seconds left. We stuck with the game plan and it paid off when we shot their snake runner on the break as well as their 1 dorito side. It was a 5 on 3 our favor with plenty of time to get our mercy rule win and pad the margin. By the way, Dany got to show off his gymnastic balancing skills for that final buzzer beater.
VS HOUSTON HEAT
We needed to beat Heat. Sure, some of us had done some math so that, from a contingency plan perspective, if things got out of hand, we would know the situation and could play the margin. But a win by any score puts us in. And it isn’t necessary to have those conversations with the players anyway…
Our game plan matched up well against Heat. It would be a grinder but if we could control tempo and execute the game plan more consistently, we would be the victor and that’s essentially how this one played out. Our guns on the break were good again this match. I keep mentioning this because I gave the guys a hard time about our guns on the break in Tampa.
We won the first point decisively with good guns off the break, solid bumps, and pressure. Heat conceded the point after 32 seconds. Second point was a grinder going 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Came down to a 3 v 3. Arturo shoots Chad George, but at the EXACT same time, Blake tries to retreat and gets caught by Mishka. Then Mishka and Harry traded, leaving just Arturo in the snake can and Lapapa in the home. Lapapa filled Chad’s spot in the snake can just as Arturo went, making him second guess himself and ultimately getting caught.
Third point went long. 5 on 5 breakout and two minutes go by before we shot the first body from Heat. We were already wider than them on the D side but when Joe made it to the dorito corner, I knew we were Gucci. Great execution by Dany to take the ground and Yosh to get Soap off the field. A little more time went by and we took Moorhead off the field followed by a quick concession by Coach Ryan Smith.
This was a Sunday match up and was playing out that way. Not just because of the pace and the teams involved but, on Sunday, you win or go home and both of us were in that situation to an extent. I know Heat was. The 4th point was the key. We get up 4 on 3 after more than 3 minutes pass. As the clock dwindles, Heat found themselves in a tough position. We had them contained. Soap recognizes this and decided to trade out with Ryan and hopefully create an opportunity. They trade but nothing came of it other than it now being a 3 on 2. Arturo was matched up one on one with Chad George while Harrison and Joe were matched up against Moorhead. But then it happened, Arturo got hit by Chad. Joe fills to the dorito corner giving Chad the snake to himself. Harry retreated which I didn’t understand since he was well protected from snake in the dorito he was in. While I’m thinking this, Harrison got a minor clearing our field and allowing Heat to tie it up. As they stood there, I knew Heat would take it to overtime. So we conceded the point at 20 seconds or so in order to get extra game plan time. For the record, at this point, had we lost to Heat, we would have still made Sunday.
We had played pretty conservative the whole match and we decided to go a little far with Harrison. He didn’t make it but neither did Chad George. 4 on 4. Blake was having equipment issues, otherwise, I felt like this point would have been over sooner. When he finally got back into the fight, he went hunting. Because I think Lapapa was having gun issues too, and wasn’t fighting much, Arturo decided to take the snake. Soap repositioned to the brick, Ryan made the call, and Blake took Soap off the board. We end up in an island drill … and it looked grim when they picked up Arturo… but then we got Moorhead. 2 on 2 with 18 seconds left. And then… Ryan Greenspan. What can I say… the dude can play.
We were 3 and 1 headed into Sunday as the 5th seed. Good enough to shoot us straight into the quarters where we would draw the 4th seed and winners of their bracket (also 3 and 1), Tampa Bay Damage. This event had almost a deja vu feeling as in Tampa, we played three of the same 4 teams in prelims and drew Damage as our first match Sunday in the quarters as well.
We went back to the hotel, had sandwiches and burgers, put together a game plan for the former coach and my friend SK as well as former teammate Chris Schehr, and went to sleep recognizing our mistakes and feeling good about the match up.
VS TAMPA BAY DAMAGE
Obviously, we were going to key up on Keith and Chris. And, for the most part, we were successful. We would press hard on the doritos, let our center hunt on specific plays and control on others while taking snake opportunities when appropriately available. The first and second points showed this approach quite well actually. Slow steady pressure. A couple of mistakes in the first but solid execution on the second, even without Ryan.
The next three points however… we let Damage go on a bit of a tear. Third point is different if Harry just checks off. Had he checked off, Holiday is busted and we have an opportunity to counter. Fourth point, we both traded bodies on the break but Damage beat us to the middle as well as got a shot in on Joe. That collapsed things pretty quick. Tied at 2 with 6:40 on the clock. But we had learned something about the field now and it had to do with our first attacker on the D side, so we kept that in mind. We shot Chris on the break and took the snake with a center presence. Solid. Then we get a minor penalty. Dang it. Our 5 on 4 is now a 3 on 4 Damage advantage. In the scramble, Damage pulls it off. Down by 1 with 5 and a half minutes left.
We showed excellent composure and control in the next point. We go up two bodies shooting both Edward brothers but gave them one back in Dany off of a bounce shot. Chaos ensued but this time we won the scramble. Tied up with 3:30 or so on the clock. The rain kicks in but we felt good about our shots. And one pays off as we shot Schehr on the break. They got Holiday into that Hertz tower on the cross. 5 on 4 advantage with plenty of time and lessons learned. Yosh is in the center. Too tasty looking for Holiday who launched into an over watch gun. 5 on 3. Yosh then begins the hunt through the center and got another! 5 on 2 but then he was picked up but not before a concession from SK. Now 4-3 with just over 2 minutes left.
We felt confident they would send Keith on the break and they did. We were prepped and Ryan made an excellent shot and got a ball on Keith. Arturo made the snake before the ref calls Keith eliminated. We hadn’t shown that Hertz tower play all match so it was time to bring it out. Yosh got in but gave it up opting to hunt instead of contain. Ryan got out snake way behind Arturo. Dany and Joe were still alive… we were at just over a minute. I felt very confident with this set up that it was our game. Dany picks up Holiday as he tries to fill the snake… 5 on 3 our advantage. But somehow Jason Edwards makes it into the snake and Jake makes a bold move through the snake side center to pick off Arturo. They now have the snake to themselves as they see Ryan’s gun shooting on the cross. They pinch Dany and Jason launches getting both Ryan and Joe. Chris Schehr hits the buzzer with 1 second left.
We ended up in another Island drill in the overtime point. Joe Barret made a great move outside to stop the bleeding quickly followed by Ryan. Arturo was in the snake. Joe repositioned to check Chris allowing Ryan to pressure Holiday leading to Holiday’s elimination. This leaves Schehr in a dorito and Keith Brown in snake can. Keith launched to bunker Arturo. Keith misses. Arturo doesn’t. Ryan runs Chris down. On to the Semis.
*ZEN NOTE: There appears to have been controversy regarding the overtime point. I will say this, Keith called his shot on Arturo. You clearly hear Keith say, “On his hopper” pointing. There was no hit on his hopper. The paint on Arturo’s butt came from him sitting on a ball. There is no one who was ever in position to shoot him in the ass. Case closed. Technically, you could argue Keith was a dead player signaling…
VS TON TONS
The Ton Tons just got better as the event went on. They started Friday off going 0-2 versus Damage and Impact. However, they would win both their matches Saturday beating Leverage 3-1 (they were the only team that Leverage scored a point on during the entire event) and threw cold water on the Hurricanes’ bid for Sunday beating them 6-1. That was enough to garner them one of the two wildcard spots. They would wake up Sunday morning with a real attitude and give it to Uprising first in the ochos 6-1, followed by a win over Baltimore Arsenal in the Quarters (4-1). So it would be the Ton Tons we faced in the semis.
The first point was a much slower pace for both teams even though we both took the snake early. We were the first to punch the center as well as get wide d-side with two bodies. We shot their snake side can but then lose Joe almost at the same time. The first body to drop for both teams was over 5 minutes in. It was 4 on 4 for the next 2 minutes when out of the blue (with very few guns shooting) we lose Dany. Yosh gets caught a minute later. I start walking towards the concede button when Ryan got caught and Arturo shoots one of the remaining 4 Ton Tons… I concede. An 8 and a half minute point.
We answered the next point in just over 2 minutes. Tied 1 to 1 with just under 4:50 left on the clock. The third point saw our guns hot off the break again. We shot two and blow their snake side. We lose Joe early again but we were in the drivers seat… for about 10-12 seconds. Federov shot Blake making it a 3 on 3. Fabrice got a shot in on Arturo and I am making my way to the concede button again. Except Alex Fraige was already there. 2:50 on the clock down by 1.
We shot one off the break then caught a minor… a 5 on 4 advantage for us to a 4 on 3 advantage to our opponents… again. I try not to slip on the stairs I’m standing on and get to the concede. 2:10 left, down by 2.
We shot another off the break but give them two back! Bodies are running around everywhere, people are colliding, mass hysteria. It comes down to a one on one between Arturo and Federov. Arturo makes the heads up play for the buzzer and hit it with 1:13 on the clock.
It was the final point where we could argue we were robbed. A referee signals a player eliminated, turns and throws a yellow flag high in the air, and pulls a player… except he never pulled or asked another ref to pull the player he signaled eliminated. This is not in dispute. This was confirmed by Jason Trosen. The eliminated player was left on the field. My guys saw the flag go up in the air, signifying two eliminations. That eliminated player shoots Yosh Rau and stalls our push. When he shot Yosh, that should have been a major which is an automatic swing point under 60 seconds. I believe the clock was around 1 minute left. Meaning, we get the point and the Ton Tons have to play a man down so we would have been on the power play. After 30 minutes of discussion, it is decided, “Sorry… nothing I can do.” Our argument was they wouldn’t have been overturning a call, but rather, that they would have been enforcing it. But, alas, to no avail. Ton Tons, a wild card team, would go on to play the other wild card team…
But it shouldn’t have come down to that one call. We should have executed better the points prior. Simple. Lots of mistakes this event. But I guarantee you we are better for it. We implemented some new things in the pits that worked well this time. We have already discussed better preparation methods. So much more to do. Trust the process. Goals are being met but we are not complacent. I, for one, cannot wait to see my boys in blue again and get to work for Cincinnati. Lots to do…
Shout out to the Dynasty Champions Club and all the support the guys and gals provided this event and every event. You know who you are! You are the real MVPs! Couldn’t do it without 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.
I am of a proud Sicilian heritage. Every once in a while, I find myself tapping into that lineage. For instance, there is an old Sicilian proverb that, in a small way, sums up the recent NXL’s 2023 Windy City Open for me; “Non chiedere ciò che non puoi prendere”.
There was a long break between the Mid Atlantic Major in Philly and the most recent event in Oak Forest, IL just outside of Chicago. Plenty of time to regroup and think about our successes and shortcomings at the last event. We were looking forward to this event as we felt we were on the precipice to reach another goal. Once again, the league (or fate for that matter, depending on how you look at it) had handed us another tough bracket. But we were ready. We like the trenches, we live for the challenge, and we long for the fight where we stand, once again in front of the doubters and say, “Come and get some”.
We have hit a stride and have been a rather well oiled machine this season. We have made the best of our limited time together, looking for advantages where ever we can find them, bouncing ideas off each other, having zoom calls, making and watching tape, drilling, scrimmaging, studying… we were feeling good. But fate was not done with us yet.
During one of our off layout weekends, Drew Bell would be sidelined with a high ankle sprain 3 weeks before the event and 2 weeks out from the layout practice weekend.
Stuart Ridgel, a week after Drew and a week before the layout weekend would be out at the field and suffer an almost identical fate. Another ankle injury but more of a tendon issue. And still, fate wasn’t finished…
The week prior to the layout practice, Justin Bailey would be nursing a back injury. Daniel Camp would fly in for one day on the layout practice as he had his brother’s wedding to attend. Jacob Searight would suffer a mild medical issue his first day on the layout only to bounce back for the Sunday practice.
Now, all of this may sound like I am building up excuses. I assure you I am not. I am simply setting the stage for what was to be an impressive event and what has always been a part of our story. Every team faces some adversity. We are no different. When you have a team like us, it isn’t a matter of “if” but “when”. It was bound to happen. We have faced countless adversities before, this was nothing new per say… We have embraced and worked to overcome several obstacles over the seasons. It is what it is. So we adapted, made some adjustments, and worked to put our best foot forward. And I think we scratched the surface of what we are capable of this event.
We were excited that our good friends Austin Notorious would join us again for the layout practice. But we were also joined by top tier team Edmonton Impact. Bart Yachimac and Dave Baines made the long trip to join us at our home field of LA Xtreme Paintball in Slidell, LA. We were blessed with relatively “cool” weather with temperatures in the mid 80’s (but it is the humidity that gets you). With Notorious playing their brand of paintball coupled with Impact running two lines, the New Orleans Hurricanes got our fair share of looks.
*ZEN NOTE – This marks the 5th time I have had the privilege to see the inner workings of an awesome program. It never ceases to amaze me how these teams operate and work. I am fascinated by the process and the opportunity to watch yet another high level program work as it is just more programming for the old man’s noggin. Thank you again to Bart and Impact.
We had a pretty good idea of how this field should play… and so, we pretty much stuck with the game plan, trying to polish it up, learning incremental lessons, while moving some players around to make the most of our strengths. We always feel good after a good beat down on the layout weekend and that’s what we got (okay, maybe not good, but definitely not bad). Both Notorious and Impact seemed to move at will and get into position first on us quite often. But we worked the timing. We played around a little with some concepts but for the most part, kept it paintball 101. It would be about obtaining key spots, creating the “set up”, and executing the game plan. Sounds simple, I know. It isn’t. It didn’t matter if you had 5 alive and they were all doing their jobs… there would still be a hole. The key was to recognize it quicker than your opponent.
So we were quite literally limping into Chicago but our morale coming into this event was high. It was like the saying, “If you have no confidence in yourself, you are twice defeated.” We were determined to fight every step of the way, and we knew we had the right plan. So we pulled up our britches, slapped our face a couple of times, and stepped into the ring for the first match.
VS Columbus LVL
We were the very first point of the event. We pride ourselves on our scouting and preparation for teams. But there would be no opportunity to see how teams were playing the field, no opportunity to see if anyone else was approaching the layout the way were. It was litmus test time and Columbus LVL is a team that can punch above their weight class when they are on. I was aware they didn’t have Damian Ryan but knew they would throw Danny Schonauer at that snake often, probably with Lehman behind him in support.
Our opening volley was pretty simplistic. We wanted guns up, eyes on, and get to the snake. LVL is similar but they filter a body up into the snake side wedge early. We match them about the same time European/German snake player but 100% Hurricane Nic Ripple shoots Schonauer on the wire to win the snake war. Drew Bell sneaks a ball on the D side tower who was attempting to wrap his bunker. This leaves LVL fighting from a position of inferiority as we are wider on both sides of the field than their widest players. At this point, it is anaconda time. Nic catches the snake wedge and crawls to the end of LVL’s snake. Daniel Camp sees the line, takes the center and polishes off the last opponent. Canes -1 LVL – 0
We decide to keep it simple but Drew Bell and Mike Brown know to look for the read. And they see it. LVL sends a player shooting snake way to that inset baby dorito. He misses his shot but Drew/Mike don’t. Schonauer returns the favor from the previous point and clips Nic on the wire. LVL stays doubled in that home a little too long and lose a gunfight. However, Schonauer has the snake too himself and for all intents and purposes, LVL has the advantage. But we studied this scenario at practice. We had a code for a situation when our opponent had the snake uncontested. The code goes out and Daniel Camp takes the snake wedge looking to play wack-a-mole while Aaron Pate filters wider to add to the gun but not before he puts a ball on LVL’s snake wedge. We now have the numerical advantage even after Schonauer takes Daniel out. Pate assesses the situation and drops the hammer clean. Interestingly enough, the last LVL player is in the home. It’s a 3 v 1 in favor of us, so my guys check in and milk the point a bit. Mike Brown moves down D side and wins the gun fight. Canes – 2 LVL – 0
We are up two now and LVL had shown they would break snake but they weren’t in any hurry to get a body behind him. They wanted to fill that snake wedge first. So we decide to kill the clock a little by going wide and spreading the field. The thought being, if we make it out alive, we slow snake progress, and should be able to shoot the late fill to the snake wedge, isolating their snake presence and putting us in the driver seat. You would have thought we scripted it. We get to corner and stop Danny at the first snake knuckle, and shoot the late fill to the snake wedge. Aaron Pate, with only one gun to beat (the juice box, because the home and d side tower have to try and contest the potential D side push as we are wider than them) filters underneath into the snake. LVL realizes Pate has fed snake so they quickly fill the snake corner. Nic catches LVL’s snake rounding a knuckle. Barring a lost gunfight, we were now set up to drain the clock and suck the life out of this point. My guys all check in and know the situation. With d side and snake side containment in position from the snake, this frees two of my guys to shift the skirmish line and increase pressure on LVL to either make them concede or force bad gun fights. Mike Brown and Drew Bell add pressure through the center and D side respectively. Regrettably, we let LVL back to the snake but it doesn’t matter. We tighten the noose. Canes – 3 LVL – 0
We decided to spread again except we wanted to test the route to the dorito 1. Funny thing is, so does LVL. We mirror up and both team’s dorito 1 runner take the walk. We both make snake but LVL actually fills the dorito 1 immediately. This tells me their ploy was to concede a shot or two and push the field on both sides. It begins to bode ill for us as they get to snake corner but Nic Ripple gets a shot on him. Drew Bell vacates the home to throw a wrench D side and Daniel Camp fills the snake corner. Four on three body advantage to us. One could argue that LVL has slightly better field advantage but we are in position to counter if necessary. We have two pivot positions now so we are set up well. No sooner do I say that to myself in the pit, we pick off LVL’s D side one player. LVL’s next D side player decides to try and make something happen (good man – take it out of coaches hands). This leaves the snake player in a one on four scenario and LVL quickly concedes with just over 6 minutes left on the clock. Canes – 4 LVL – 0
But LVL is a pro team for a reason. And they show it during the next point. They shoot our snake corner on the break while taking the snake, and don’t let us spread. We get caught in the pocket and don’t get our code out to counter. Disaster. Danny comes all the way down the snake and finishes the point. LVL is on the board. Canes -4 LVL – 1
We put two pocket guns on the snake and bounce him. Unfortunately, they didn’t bounce Nic and he comes off early. Though, at the same time Daniel Camp shoots his mirror. Four on four action to start the 6th point. LVL comes all the way to our side of the field, the super secret code reaches Daniel and he posts. But he decides he doesn’t want to guess and just goes and gets him. LVL gets overzealous D side and runs into Drew Bell’s gun as Mike Brown takes ground. This relieves any pressure on Drew who can play freely now. He tracks LVLs next snake attack, feeds data to Pate who launches and removes the snake threat. At the same time, Mike Brown had dispatched LVL’s juice box. LVL concedes with 3:20 left in the match. Canes – 5 LVL – 1
With 6 points under us, we have a good understanding of LVL. They showed us an opportunity in their break outs so we decide to exploit it. We throw Nic up the gut doubling the snake lane and then cut him across into the snake. It pays off as we shoot LVL’s snake runner and Nic makes it in . BUT – we did not anticipate the big dorito side run. This man shoots at least 3 of my guys before trading leaving Nic in a two on one situation. Nic trades with one of them leaving one LVL player to go get the buzzer. What should have been our point is foiled by a ballsy move by LVL. That one is on me. Canes – 5 LVL -2
2:20 left on the clock. Plenty of time to pad the point spread. I felt confident the previous play would work again but to be safe, we have a gun shifted. I felt we shot the snake runner but the ref doesn’t find a hit. No worries though as Nic gets payback with a good shot down the wire. LVL takes the center brick but for some reason gives his back to the snake. Perhaps he was depending on his home player to have filtered snake way by then? Either way Nic gives him a tattoo. Then… chaos. People are everywhere and I black out. Kidding, it boils down to a 3 on 1 and we shoot the last LVL player. I figure LVL will let the time run off. Color me surprised when they conceded the point at 44 seconds.
Now, Stu had dressed out to keep up appearances. We didn’t want anyone to know (like they wouldn’t notice… but hey). He wants to test the ankle. I agree…hesitantly. We decide to get heavy guns up and let Stu take the line. It is there and he gets one but should have got two. A lot to ask though for the hobbled player. Justin Bailey reads and reacts perfectly, reaches the corner, wraps and traps shooting the home player leaving only one D side player for LVL. Bailey launches but time runs out. 2-3 more seconds and Bailey would have increased our win by five instead of four. However, prior to point, we decided not to jeopardize anyone’s injuries. FINAL SCORE: CANES -6 LVL – 2
VS Latin Saints
The Latin Saints and NRG Elite are the only two teams that the Canes have not faced in our short two year pro career. After Word Cup this year, NRG will be the only team we have never faced at least once. Headed into this match, I was NOT looking past Saints. Heck, I don’t look past anyone, but the Saints had just taken Diesel deep, scoring 3 unanswered. Granted, it looked as if Diesel was trying something particular or rather specific after going up 4, but I am not in Mike Hinman’s head so I won’t speculate. The Saint’s guns on the break were solid and I happen to know 3 of their players very well. So no, we would not take them lightly. A team that has nothing to lose is very dangerous…and can be quite unpredictable.
Point 1 we would go with a base play looking for the set up of 3 bodies snake way and 2 retaining the read option. Similar breakouts but we beat them to the snake wedge. Saints did a good job of keeping Pate from spreading to snake corner so he filters to the god instead. We know they want the snake wedge so we keep Mike Brown on the gap and sure enough, he picks up the secondary fill. Greg Turton played well at this event and he decides to get offensive D side for the Saints by taking dorito 1. This spot has an excellent bounce shot into the snake. If a snake player is playing “tall” inside, that bounce will eradicate him quickly. Nic stays disciplined on snake wire while Colin Cherry tries to clear a zone and make snake corner. We have it on lock and Cherry takes the walk. It is now 5 on 3 advantage to us so, we zone up, sporadic paint, allowing the remaining Saint players to burn their paint off their backs. Pate moves to the head of the snake.
*ZEN NOTE – I was asked about why we do this and not get to the corner. It is a risk/reward equation. It has some good shots on the wrap, can stop a spread with good protection, it protects against the highway run, and if we lose asset one in the snake, we still have a snake presence. But it does have a significant weakness which is shown in point 2 (and other matches).
We set up here to choke them out again. Saints make a desperation run highway, zone control addresses it, final Saints player tries to build off chaos, zone control handles him too. Canes – 1 Saints – 0
We did have a small discussion in the pit after that point. My four guys were at the buzzer checking each other over and discussing the point. That was good. BUT… since we were a bit skeleton crew-ish, I asked them all to check each other over, choose one guy to stand at buzzer, and the rest get in the pit so we could get ready for the next point. Efficiency people!
We decide to make the Saints beat us at our game. Keep it simple, gather some data on their adjustment, and go from there. The Saints smartly take that snake corner on the break and we allow them to secondary D side, filter to the god, and get out of the doubled home. Pate ends up taking the snake with Nic but this decision was made unaware that we had lost Drew behind him who would have naturally filtered out behind him. The Saints quickly take ground in the snake and D side. But like I said earlier, if you come into that snake wedge high and unaware, the bounce will take you. And that’s what happens to the Saints player. Once we eliminate the first snake threat, Mike Brown is free to get wide D side to contest the Saints presence there and create more options for himself. Incredibly, the Saints player filters to the D side wedge. On top of this, he doesn’t seem to know the situation and gets picked up by Nic from the snake. The Saints snake corner is forced to feed the snake since I am pretty sure he was out of paint. We pick up another kill D side and are in a 4 on 2 body advantage but the snake player for Saints gets a free kill D side on Mike Brown. This is the issue (one of a few) with not having snake corner and having the head of the snake instead. I would learn after this point, there was a “caution D side corner” call which is why Daniel Camp kept eyes on that way. I am pleased my guys eventually work it out (well, the Saints do that for us) but it was concerning none the less. Pate had the ball early and could have traded with a clever highway run when Evan Manners was in the Home. However, once Evan filtered to the snake wedge, coupled with the miscommunication (lets call it a misunderstanding?), we have now allowed this point to get out of hand. Deductive reasoning. We had discussed at practice that there has to be an “assumption of risk” on this field. But when data is unsure, cover the fronts and that’s what my guys essentially did. Saints win this point if not for the penalty. Canes – 2 Saints – 0
We are on the power play here for the next point. It was a 5 on 3 to start, Canes advantage. We know they will take the back line three bunkers. I anticipate the moment we shoot one, they will concede to get 5 back on the box. I would be lying if I said I was not looking to pad our point margin headed into the 2nd day. To be safe, we double guns up at home, get our cross guns up to foil a big run or at least see it, and take the snake. Saints get wide but their dorito player runs into Nic’s gun from the snake. And then the concession. Canes – 3 Saints – 0
I want to push the D side a little. We decide to spread a bit and see what Saints show us being down 3 and with 3:30 left on the clock. I found it interesting they spread (we would usually do it from the “red” side as well but not sure if they were doing it for the same reason we were). Perhaps they saw no issue with their secondaries. The Saints finally get the right set up. They have the snake, snake wedge, snake corner, coupled with a Home and a dorito 1 (which eventually moves to dorito wedge). Britt Simpson had already made his primary and knows the Saints will more than likely make what we were calling the snake 2. He times it well and shoots the snake 1. Saints home player filters out and draws a minor leaving them with snake corner and snake wedge only versus my five. I would have liked my guys to create a little more pressure at this point and we had a brief discussion afterwards about it. I had also not shared with them my desire for a point spread so that is on me, too. Just the same, Drew Bell sees the line, and makes the right read. He trades with Evan Manners in the snake wedge. The penalty that followed surprised me as Evan was looking that way. I thought I saw a ref call a mutual but then saw a flag go up. Tough break. Canes – 4 Saints – 0
We are on a bit of a power play again (5 on 4) and I am now thinking we are going to get out of this with the bare minimum spread I wanted. But… with 1:26 left on the clock, I don’t want to take any chances. They haven’t been shooting our snake so we are going back. I want to spread to use a “alamo” play but with assets that can shift gears and attack D way if necessary. I state that, if we get the opportunity, I want the point but let’s not be careless. Justin Bailey wins his first engagement with his mirror making it a 5 on 3 advantage. We lose Britt out of the corner (pretty sure Saints snake player got that shot) but Bailey smartly takes the snake corner. Daniel gets hyper aggressive in the snake (I like it!) but the Saints snake player gets a ball on him. But to do it, he had to come out into Bailey’s lane. Bailey, knowing the situation, launches down the snake route, gunning the whole way, and gets us that 5th point. I would have liked him to wait a bit before hitting the buzzer but I don’t blame him. He looked good and that feeling of hitting the buzzer at that point is pretty cool. Canes – 5 Saints – 0
Now, here is where coach makes another mistake. I initially want to take another alamo approach and get out of the match with a 5 point win. In addition, I don’t want to risk further injury on the team. But I let myself get talked into a play call by two of my guys. I normally would have vetoed the request but they were feeling it and I need to let the dogs hunt occasionally. Regrettably, we would pay for it. Not that it was a bad call by my guys, it wasn’t. It was a bad call by me. I am accountable.
During the final point, a decision to call Ryan Williamson off his zone allows Brandon Portman to take a seam and round our D side corner. Ryan does turn in time and they lock eyes both raising their markers at the same time to shoot each other. BUT – Portman hits the buzzer. He is clearly hit. As a matter of fact, Portman wipes himself down immediately after hitting the buzzer (left forearm). You’re probably wondering how I know this for sure. My man Ryan Williamson came to the pit and was adamant that he had got a ball on Portman. I asked for a review which was graciously granted. Jason Trosen confirmed for me that I was, indeed, correct. He concurred that Portman was hit and did attempt to wipe the hit. However, because the on field refs called him clean, I had no recourse. I appreciated his candor and that of the head ref as well (who also felt he saw the hit). Shouldn’t have come to that anyway. Woulda coulda shoulda… FINAL SCORE: Canes – 5 Saints -1
We now had two wins by a margin of 4. I was pleased with the teams performance on day one but the real test was awaiting us on Saturday. We had AC Diesel who surely were addressing the issues they had day 1 and the defending previous event champions, Tampa Bay Damage. We had scouted both and both were playing the field similar to us when it mattered. I had chatted with Mouse on the way into the event that morning and he briefed me of his injury. The dude is a fine tuned machine so I wasn’t weighing his injury too much. I suspected that Hinman would call out the mistakes from their previous matches and the experienced team would adjust. During our scouting of them, we saw a small nuance in the snake and we would try and exploit it (something we learned during our scrimmage with Notorious and Impact). We also had a good understanding of their breaks depending on personnel. We anticipated a knife fight and that’s what we got.
VS AC DIESEL
The first point we kept it simple and took high survivability bunkers to assess while not limiting our options. We bounce BJ (dang it) and they break essentially the way Impact would on us at practice with smart crisp secondary moves. We counter but once again, Pate can’t get to that corner so he options up. This also allows him, Daniel, and Nic to have easy conversations. Once we reposition, I think, okay just don’t let mouse out to the snake corner and we’re Gucci (coach is learning the nomenclature of the youth). Maybe 30 seconds later, I look up and dang it if Mouse isn’t in the friggin’ snake corner. Since we don’t have snake corner, Nic has to be more defensive facing two guns. BUT, my man Pate finally makes it to the snake corner too. Sigh of relief from coach there. Spicka smartly re-positions to the center brick to set a trap. Spicka misses his first shot though and Nic backs up to place the inset mini wall between him and Spicka. I felt Nic could have used the mini wall to block out Spicka and try the bounce off the pin, especially since Clint Johnson had vacated that D side Wedge and was now at dorito 3. If that bounce worked, that relieves tremendous pressure. But Drew Bell gets caught which now creates a small problem, especially based off Clint’s positioning. Daniel Camp has to shift the gun. Mike Brown gets out to D corner which actually sets up a line for Spicka who doesn’t miss his first ball on Daniel Camp. The dominoes fall as Spicka obviously knows the field layout and our positions. I concede the point. A well executed point by AC. Canes – 0 Diesel – 1
We know if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it and figure AC was coming with a similar game plan as their last point. Only difference is they double home. We match them without the two at home. Drew Bell lands his shot on the D side one player for diesel and our nuanced snake approach works catching BJ crawling. The guys check in and once they understood kill count and where Diesel was, Drew knows he needs to filter up the gut and Jacob Searight knows to wrap and trap from dorito way. Spicka makes a smart move again to counter but Drew survives initial engagement and then wins the gun fight. Now its just a matter of polishing things off. A good answer from the Canes if I say so myself. Two well played points from both teams. Canes – 1 Diesel – 1
Diesel spreads to D corner the next point and we go short that side. Both teams take snake and Nic posts up. Daniel Camp filters to snake wedge putting an asset in place to address either threat either side. But dang it if we don’t let Mouse get to corner again! We miss the snake shot opportunity and Mouse is wrapped keeping Pate from getting wide. So once again, he optioned to the god. This point ultimately goes to us because BJ tries to finish his run on Nic in the snake while Daniel was over-watch. I saw it coming actually and threw my own imaginary flag when he got shot by Daniel and continued forward and pulled the trigger on Nic. Baginski tries to stop the hemorrhaging by spreading back snake way from the D side but is picked up and stalled. Hinman smartly concedes the point around the 8 minute mark. Canes – 2 Diesel – 1
When we see BJ and Jess out on the box, we know they will go snake corner and snake on the break. But just because you know doesn’t mean you can stop it. Spicka wins his first or second engagement against Daniel in that center juice box near the snake wedge. However, Nic once again wins the snake war with a clutch shot on BJ. Nic does a head check and sees Diesel’s late fill to the snake wedge. Up a point, he retreats to connect with Pate and piece things together. Then moves back to snake one. Spicka successfully re-positions himself in order to fill the snake. Nic just misses Spicka as he rounds a knuckle. Would have liked for Pate to get to corner but he ops for the god again. Probably because he has been trained by our opponents at this point as they only let him get there once so far. Nic just misses Spicka a second time. But then the read happens. With Spicka that close, Nic knows he has to go, jumps the beam and pulls off a dynamic highway run to get Spicka clean. In the chaos, Pate fills the snake. Drew Bell moves to center to increase pressure. We are just under 5 minutes so I am okay with my guys doing our slow strangle/choke-out, as I am anticipating to win the point. I am hoping to burn another minute or two. We have position and eyes on the three remaining Diesel players. All we have to do is maintain the pressure, not lose a gun fight, and let them hang themselves. I end up getting about 2:20 before Diesel concedes. Canes – 3 Diesel – 1
I would not be an honest man if I were to tell you I was comfortable with a 2 point lead and 2:40 on the clock against Diesel. We were now going to get a peek at Diesel’s bag of tricks. I am confident it will be D side but that is about it. Diesel gets a kill on our two position snake side on the break. We are now dangerously exposed with only Nic on snake side. Drew Bell filters out from home to stem the bleeding. Spicka clocks in AGAIN and scores a kill on my D side corner… Now the cookie is crumbling faster than I anticipated. That’s a terrible feeling when you see two of your back line die and leave your snake player alone. But I’m not hitting that concede button. So Nic has to wear it to further tick time off the clock. Leaving Nic hanging in the wind as sacrifice gets us 10 more seconds off the clock. Canes – 3 Diesel -2
Based off personnel on the box, we assume they want the snake corner and the snake simultaneously again, so we call the audible. Drew Bell does the right thing and keeps Daniel Camp on that D side cut so Drew can take the snake wedge. This was done because Mouse made the snake corner and won’t let Pate spread to match. Once this happened and we were just under a minute, I felt we were in position to contain and dictate, for the most part the next 50 seconds. I was wrong. Jesse makes an amazing crawling shot in the snake on Nic. Then a shot in on Drew. Now the back is broken and the hope is they don’t recognize it in the next 30 seconds. But they do. Spicka clears through and Diesel hits the buzzer with 6 seconds left.
We want to play the 6 seconds so we have time to think about how we want to approach the overtime point. My guys go out and buy us time to confer.
Because we have a margin to play with I decide to spread. Especially since Jacob Searight has shown his willingness to get sneaky and press the issue D side. Nic hasn’t been shot on the break this match so… let’s go boys. I got the feeling Diesel won’t risk anything and will probably go with their base play confident in their secondaries. Sure enough, that is what happens. This is what I call the “kenpo” effect. One strike creates a reaction from the opponent which leads to the next strike and the next reaction. With Diesel essentially using one gun to slow the D side push, Searight does what he needs to do, beats the gun, and gets into the 50 dorito. Spicka filters to snake wedge to look D side and address the now large thorn in their side. Nic catches Jesse to win the snake war while Mouse gets caught in the gap by our gun in D tower we specifically asked to shoot for that fill. The desired effect had been achieved and we have them on their heels. The risk had paid its rewards at only 30 seconds in of the 5 minute overtime point. With just over 4 minutes to play with, Diesel will ultimately dictate how fast we tighten the noose. We comfortably move the skirmish line forward with the 5 on 3 body advantage. At least, that was the plan. Mike Brown gets caught. Okay, not the end of the world. We still have the tactical position advantage. But then Jacob loses a gun fight. Well, this… changes things. Especially since my snake side is unaware we had shot Mouse and still think there is a snake corner (meaning someone died with data). As a coach, it is moments like this that you play the point over in your head trying to understand the issue. But Drew Bell remembers his bounce shot and scores a key kill on Diesel’s widest D side player. But then he puts the team on his back again, hauls butt on a bad ankle and no ACLs to cinch up the noose. He gets Spicka making it a 3 on 1. But Baginksi gets a ball on him. But it was too little to late as Nic Ripple launches and takes Baginski out to give the Canes the win in overtime. FINAL SCORE: CANES – 4 Diesel – 3
We have now had the opportunity to scout Damage three times. I’m looking at my data, I’m looking a Damage, I’m looking at my guys, and I’m looking back at my data. We are playing the same game. It will be a matter of who makes the small mistakes. We felt good coming into this match. But I am a contingency guy. So I am looking at our point margin as well as the rest of the matches that will be played that afternoon. I felt confident in Dynasty and X factor’s remaining schedules, and thought to myself, even if we lose, all we need to do is keep it close and we should have a straight shot to quarters… I know what you are thinking, “Coach, what do you mean “lose”?! You play to win!” – yes, correct. But I have injuries on my roster and I want to make sure we have every advantage. We are facing a champion team with tremendous experience who had no doubt scouted us… and my job is to put my guys in the best possible position. So sometimes you have to think uncomfortable thoughts.
VS Tampa Bay Damage
I think we all knew we were in for a grinder. And that’s what this match would be. Two fighters feeling each other out, probing, jabbing, head movement, footwork… the works.
First point, we come out with very similar break outs. Damage uses the pocket space behind the baby dorito to put a gun on the head of the snake and it pays off as they shoot Nic on the break. This was only the 2nd time he had been shot on the break the event. But that Damage player has to sacrifice his body to do it as he gets picked up as well. A better trade for Damage though as they now own the snake. Keith Brown wastes no time at all coming to our side of the snake and they also release up the gut to the center brick to keep us from countering to the snake. Luckily we don’t take the bait and take the snake corner and not the snake. Keith still gets his first two kills on Mike Brown and Britt Simpson. Pate finds Keith and gets him off the board making it a 3 on 2, advantage Damage. I’m looking at the set up and the clock and decide I can give my two a minute to pull something off. Sure enough, we pick up Chris Horn and make it a 2 on 2. Jason Edwards knows the deal and gets out to the snake corner. With Raney at the center brick, it’s essentially a stalemate. But Raney has been at this game a while and cleverly retreats to spread further to the D side. But Pate is no slouch either and knows he wants to spread. He tells Drew so, Drew Bell does a Drew Bell thing. Full send. And it pays off. Holy hades…. composure and gumption won that point. Canes strike first. Canes – 1 Damage – 0
Drew’s D side shot is still dialed and we strike first on the break shooting Damage’s first attacker D side Chris Horn. Keith gets in the snake again but we get Nic to the snake corner which hems Keith up at snake 1. We feed Pate underneath Nic and now we are in position with dorito 1, dorito tower, home, snake corner, and snake. Damage has snake, juice box, home, and dorito tower. Advantage Canes. Those of us in the pit settle in for what will no doubt be a long point. Raney takes a page out of our book and filters to the head of the snake and one of the Edwards gets out to the god bunker. Drew understands he needs to get his gun in the fight snake side and makes his way up to snake wedge. Still I give the advantage to us. Drew pulls back to a pivot bunker to re-assess. But I felt he was good where he was. Pods are piling up at some of my guys feet and we are a little over 3 minutes into this point and I’m starting to grow a bit concerned about paint consumption… Turns out I was right to be worried as Nic only has 1 pod at this junction. Jason Edwards decides to move back dorito side to even guns up. Raney backs up in a serpentine motion and ends up in the snake corner. At 5 minutes into this point, Nic has pulled his last pod and I’m pretty sure Mike Brown was on his last hopper as well. Now Jason makes it out to dorito corner and Keith takes one more knuckle. Easy for me to say but Pate has an opportunity to go highway here. Unfortunately, Nic is dangerously low on paint and we aren’t really communicating well which is unlike us. We are 6 minutes into this point and no coach wants to hear his guys go quiet. So Keith gives his location away after missing his shot on Britt Simpson in the dorito 1. Drew Bell gets crafty and sneaks into the mini wall next to the snake… but misses his shot! I feel like he should have just committed and taken Keith at that point. We would still have the body and position advantage. But then Jason Edwards gets picked up and shot! I’m thinking Joey may towel… but then, he has probably done the math like I have… keep it close. So he is going to ride it. Especially now that this point has gone over 7 minutes and we are at the 5 minute mark. If Joey was on his way to the towel button he stopped as Keith shoots Britt cross field making it a 4 on 3. Then… chaos. Keith goes highway as Pate launches. Keith gets Drew, Nic gets Keith, Raney gets Pate! It is now a 2 on 2 and my last two guys both have less than half a hopper between them. Nic moves inside (I wish he had stayed… I meant to ask him. If I had to guess he didn’t want 50 brick pushing him into Raney’s gun?). Raney smartly takes the snake, gets down to our side and catches Nic and then finishes off Mike Brown. I want that one back. It was now tied up with just under 3 minutes. Canes – 1 Damage – 1
Both teams make it out 5 on 5. We opt for the 2-1-2 split with our snake side one being the corner while Damage doubles home, and takes dorito 1, juice box, and snake. We had been running Nic ragged so I make the call to put Daniel in for him to get to the corner. Unfortunately, Jacob Searight takes a core sample and has to clear his gun (he ends up taking the front of the barrel off) allowing Raney to get to corner and back Keith up. The first domino falls with Pate getting a tad sloppy in his bunker exposing his hopper on a transition. We get it back though when Daniel Camp wins a gun fight with Raney coast to coast. 4 on 4 with just under 2 minutes on the clock. One of the Edwards brothers sees the opportunity since they have an asset in the snake and hauls butt to backfill the snake corner. Daniel vacates the snake corner with the intent to get Drew Bell behind or at least near him. Damage gets into dorito 3 and clips Drew and then we lose Daniel out of the snake… at this point I see we are under 30 seconds. I am not going to towel for two reasons. One, if my math holds, we are already quarters bound and not wild card. Second, why risk the charge lowering our margin? Or worse, my team is already beat up as it is. No need to pull out a dynamic attack play and risk further injury. My guys will go till the wheels fall off. But I need to save them for Sunday. It was a good match by Damage. FINAL SCORE: CANES – 1 DAMAGE -2
SUNDAY – VS Tampa Bay Damage… Again…
We waited and watched for the afternoon brackets to play out. Sure enough, Dynasty and X-factor won their brackets and the points fell where I had hoped. We would be 5th seed headed into Sunday edging out Xtreme, Infamous, Revo, and Impact who would now have to play a wild card round. We waited for the drawing (honestly, I wish they would go back to seeding for Sunday but… I’m new here). We would draw none other than Tampa Bay Damage.
Some would think, “Well dadnabbit, that sucks.” I would not be one of those people. I was actually happy with the draw. Here’s why… we had lost a nail biter to them in the prelims. We knew their game, we knew what they wanted to do, how they wanted to do it, and who they wanted to do it with. We knew this because it was the EXACT same thing we wanted to do. It would be a good match up. We simply had to tighten up, shore up, be first, and play the mistake free paintball my guys are becoming known for. Unfortunately, we would make mistakes and the match would not be as close as our first meeting. Damage was in a rhythm. I wanted to knock them out of if but it was not to be.
*Zen Note – I loved the fact that Raney Stanczak tried to get in my head following our loss to them in the prelims. That guy is a competitor and is always looking for an edge. He made a comment walking by me afterwards about how I had anticipated the wrong break out in the first point of our match. I joked back and forth with him a bit about how I had not. But he was adamant. I smiled ear to ear. What Raney doesn’t know is you can’t get in my head. It’s too crowded and there is no room. But I certainly appreciated the effort.
We wanted to change it up just a bit for the first point. We had planned on using space to get three guns on Keith. We knew if we could shoot him on the break, contain the fill out to the corner, we would be in control. It was a risk reward ploy that didn’t pay off. Couple that with Damage shooting Nic on the break quick followed by a Daniel Camp death out of the back center… I look at our situation, let it go about a minute to see if my guys can dig a kill out. I scan Damage’s posture and positioning compared to our own. This is the stranglehold approach we had used successfully in the prelims, and decide I want to get 5 back on the box. I hit the concede and we get back to basics. Canes – 0 Damage – 1
I knew placing Searight out there would give Damage a consideration for a bite on the D side in hopes of drawing at least a gun away from snake side. The plan was to keep it simple and send him short to dorito 1 (but the goal was for him to press as his stature allowed for him to maneuver better than most over there). Sure enough, they only put one gun snake way and Nic makes it in. Drew Bell had his dorito shot dialed again and gets the dorito 1 elimination. And dang it, Pate bounces Raney on their first engagement… meaning we would have returned the G2 favor Damage gave us the previous point. Again, woulda coulda shoulda. Pate moves forward and we let Raney get to corner. Drew Bell works his way into the snake wedge to be a force multiplier where needed. This point begins to play out past 5 minutes long and we know we have to start making things happen (all my guys are carrying an extra pod or two now). Nic makes the bump and gets clipped on his heel. I feel this is where Pate and Nic should have connected better. Couple that with dumb luck as Keith Brown just happens to switch his gun at that moment. We are now tied up on bodies but Searight is sticking to the game plan. He makes the 50 brick D side. Damage isn’t dumb though and sends the body to trade with Searight. And then another disaster… it appears that Mike Brown got caught in that same exchange somehow. I’m about to towel but Pate catches Keith. It is now a 2 on 2 with Drew and Pate. I’m going to give the boys the opportunity to try and dig the cross out. Regrettably, Drew gets caught making it a 2 on 1 so I concede the point. Opportunity squandered there. Canes – 0 Damage – 2
Time to adjust. Get those guns on Keith again but ensure we get the snake corner with the plan to fill underneath with Nic and as a contingency push the gut. Daniel gets the call to book it to corner with Nic playing the two to slip in underneath. Guns pay off as we eliminate Keith but we lose Daniel. Nic decides we need the corner instead of the snake and makes it out there but we let Damage fill the corner as well. It is looking to be another stalemated point which is obviously Damage’s advantage but Drew Bell sticks to the game plan and takes the center 50. Obviously Damage is spread and should have no plans to vacate these bunkers. With a 2 point lead, just under 6 minutes, they start to push the d side which was a little surprising. I’m thinking, setting a trap at the 50 won’t work but then, maybe it will if they press the issue. Just as I am thinking this Drew drops his gun for a microsecond, misses his shot, and now they know he is there. Searight tries to make something happen as well and gets caught. Mike Brown tries to push while Drew presses the line through the center not getting anyone but both made the right decision. 4 on 2, down on points, time clicking off… I have to save clock and see if we can’t make something happen. Canes – 0 Damage – 3
We know we have to have that corner and snake connection so, let’s just take it off the break. We have nothing to lose at this point. We are under 5 minutes and have to have that combination early. The goal is to create a skirmish line of snake corner, two in the snake, and let our dorito side players go since there is no doubt in my mind Damage is going back line to hold. And why wouldn’t they? But because of this, we were going to try and exploit the hole. It works but takes us longer than originally anticipated to capitalize on our positions. Pate rewrites the script and thankfully so as he realizes he may have an opportunity to be a bowling ball in the center since we have stalled out. Britt is pressing dorito side and Pate sees the opportunity to help him. Pate hits Raney on first exchange but Raney isn’t stupid, he knows the score and isn’t going away. Pate commits to remove him from the field. But Britt and Nic die out of there spots. Daniel and Drew become men possessed. Daniel dies but somehow Drew falls, gets his kill, and stays alive to get us on the board. The game is all but over but proud of that herculean effort. Canes – 1 – Damage – 3
This last point was a fight for a pride. And my guys made it spectacular. I genuinely feel if Justin Bailey doesn’t slip and fall, he gets the last two backs and we snag a second point. Thank you to Joey Blute for the kind words during the handshake after the match. I have taken them to heart sir. FINAL SCORE: CANES – 1 DAMAGE – 3
The New Orleans Hurricanes finished our 4th event for the season with a 5th place finish. The trajectory, for the most part, has continued moving in a positive direction. As a coach, this is what you want to see. Steady and continuous improvement. The fact we were able to perform with the adversity we faced heading into this event, I am incredibly pleased with our team. Grit and gumption. My guys have it in spades.
After our fourth quarter-finals appearance this season, we would win 17 points of the 28 points played giving us a 61% win average and an overall win ratio performance of 55% over 5 matches. Less than our last event but higher than the first two.
In retrospect, I truly enjoyed having Stuart Ridgel help me on the sidelines. At practice, it created an efficiency where he and I could discuss and deep dive more than usual speeding up the learning curve. The extra set of eyes at practice and at the event was outstanding. But I would be absolutely crazy if I didn’t feel he serves the team better on the field. I feel he would have been quite the force on this layout. Now, we just need to get everyone healed up. I am not that overprotective parent though. Not gonna wrap them in bubble wrap and keep them inside. Grown men need to do grown men things. But the GOAL is to get healthy!
Like every event since I have come to coach the Canes, I made some mistakes and have tried to document them here. Whether it was a play call or a personnel decision, I know I can do better. There were a few play decisions I made and there was a player I should have leveraged sooner and more often. Hind sight is always 20/20. That is the toughest part for me… reviewing my performance knowing that I could have put my guys in a better position if I had just made one different call or considered one more piece of data (or perhaps didn’t emphasize a data set as hard). Just like my players, I need to work hard to improve as well. I have to show a positive trajectory too. One thing I will say, my guys gave me 150% AGAIN. And that’s all I can ask. I need to make sure I can look back and say the same. These recaps help me with that process.
We jumped Edmonton Impact and are currently sitting 6th overall for the 2023 NXL series. That’s a positive take away from this event besides our highest finish this season (7th, 7th, 6th, and now 5th). But keeping it is another task that will require every member of this program to be firing on all cylinders. We have two more goals to reach with cup…
Of course, we get handed another difficult bracket headed into cup (the argument can be made the most difficult). But hey, “Non chiedere ciò che non puoi prendere”…
The above statement was going to be the extent of this month’s blog regarding the 2023 NXL’s Mid Atlantic Major. I think it sums it up quite succinctly. But, like my team, I will “endeavor to persevere”. Team Captain Stuart Ridgel came up with this event’s theme. He made an excellent statement earlier in the week. We are “limitless”. The only people putting limits on us are ourselves. It was time for us to step out of our own way and get what was ours. Awe-inspiring and one of 5 million reasons I am blessed to be a part of this team.
We have set rather specific goals for this season, just as we did the last. But we don’t just state the goal and will it into existence. No, when we reach a new plateau, we develop a plan/infrastructure to lead us to the next. We all fill out “audits” after every event and we use these to pave a path forward. No filter, pure honesty, and 100% accountability. Everyone sees what everyone wrote.
We met 2 of our main goals for this event: Beat Houston Heat and make Sunday. But we were very close to a 3rd goal we had set for the season. That goal is a top 4 finish. And had you asked me Sunday morning to bet on us reaching it at this past event, I wouldn’t have just called the bet, I would have raised you.
Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant said, “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”
In preparation for Philly, we had the distinct privilege to scrimmage AC Diesel. Mike Hinman is, quite literally, a legend when it comes to coaching. And you instantly see why. He commands the room. There is no “fluff”, it is to the point, efficient, and practical. My guys got to put themselves up against some legends of the game while I got to see the inner workings of a mind. We are all students and in order to be successful, we must watch and listen to learn. Every opportunity we get, we want to learn. So, we watched and listened a lot that weekend. And then applied Bruce Lee’s method: Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.
It became obvious to me you had two options on how to approach this layout. Where most matches have what we like to call the “scramble” mid game, with this particular layout, it was almost as if the scramble was taking place off the break.You either had good guns on the break with a pocket to start play off up bodies (risk getting stuck) or you took real estate fast to create pressure early (risk getting whittled). The Canes would learn both. If we could, we would hide our offensive approach until necessary. We would also shift personnel around, as well as add several audibles for the box. This would play out well as we played a total of 34 points this event. We would win 22 of those 34 for a 65% win ratio. An improvement over Sunshine State Major (57%) and Lonestar (56%). Continuous improvement is the goal and I am glad to see the needle moving in the right direction.
*Zen Note – had more than a few conversations at the event about our “style”. Supposedly we have earned a reputation of playing a lock-down style. I’ve never looked at it that way. I’ve always looked at it as, we play the field the way we think it needs to be played. There are several variables that go into that, one of which is almost always dependent on our opponent.
The Canes would head to Philly minus two valuable assets. Jacob Searight, who I felt would have been an absolute monster on this layout, and Justin Bailey who not only has tremendous survivability and excellent communication skills but showed everyone at Lonestar why he wears a Cane jersey.
VS Ironmen
We had scouted the Ironmen the day before at their practice on Thursday. You should always take a team’s practice with a grain of salt. What you will see does not necessarily translate to what you will get once the event begins. But it can be telling. You can extrapolate certain aspects of information from the breakout, the personnel, their positioning, demeanor, and of course, their game play. I got the distinct impression we were watching the Ironmen’s total game. And I would be, for the most part, right. They had solid lanes on the break for the snake, they knew the importance of the snake, but there appeared to be a large chink in the armor. And we would try to exploit it.
Headed into this game, we wanted to go short, have them waste a gun and get ours up. We shoot two. But the Ironmen take the Center Brick and the snake 50 which can make our bunkers feel small. But we had faced this scenario at practice several times so we knew how to address it. The guys maintain composure and shoot the bounce to kill the center. This leaves the Men with only two bodies left, both on the snake side. Mike Brown has steadily been taking ground on the D side looking for the slow squeeze as there is no reason to get in a hurry and run into a gun. But we give them a body in an attempt to challenge that 50 snake wrapping. The Ironmen’s snake player makes a valiant effort to make something happen (something us coaches appreciate) but it doesn’t work out and it doesn’t work out for the last push from the last Ironmen player either. 1-0 Canes
The next point was a cluster and certainly not one you want to witness as a coach. We trade bodies off the break making it a 4 on 4 but the Ironmen would have position with a snake presence. That presence peels off Mike Brown from the dorito corner making it 4 on 3 advantage Men. Aaron Pate makes the right read and re-positions to contest the snake. Those two trade. It is now a 3 on 2 in favor of the Ironmen. But this is a great example of how your opponent’s one mistake can save your rear end. The Men were in dorito 2, inset dorito, and snake side can. The snake side can Ironmen player (Pretty sure it was Keith Devitt) releases to the can near the center brick on the snake side. My guess is he wanted to keep one of my last two guys from spreading snake way. But he plays it so tight that, either he fails at this job, or he thought there was still a Canes player in the snake corner. This allows Drew Bell not only to get out to snake side can, but to shoot him. In order to do it though, Drew exposed himself to the Ironmen’s slow D side push. This leaves Stuart Ridgel in a 2 on 1. Nick Slowiak attempts to spread the field to make Stu fight two fronts. However, Stu had sneakily taken ground to the D side wedge which has a Mac Truck lane snake way, and catches Nick. It’s now a 1 on 1. Last Ironmen player doesn’t know the situation and Stu get’s the drop. 2-0 Canes.
We move back to our base play (this can change the next day dependent on opponent and what we learned first day) and pocket up a bit to get guys in primaries and guns up. And it pays off big. We shoot two and then they get a minor all within about 3-4 seconds of the break. Shane/Nicki/Pax saw enough and quickly concede. 3-0 Canes
Plenty of time on the clock. No need to risk bodies since our base seems to be working. We also know they will try to take ground early snake way and probably position one other asset far dorito. When Keith Devitt lined up in the stack snake side in the one spot, we knew he would try to round snake corner and feed the snake. We audible and put another gun there. We shoot Keith but they take one of ours as well. Interestingly enough they choose to go center brick. Smart read by the two on snake side for the Men as he quickly rounds the snake corner to feed the snake and maintain that pressure. But they give us another body from the D side. This leaves us with 4 and the Men with 3 and we know they have the center brick. With a 3 point lead we don’t have to go anywhere. We are zoned up appropriately and the clock is rolling. We kill the center leaving the two Ironmen in the snake. We had just seen this scenario before in an earlier point so, again, no need to get spectacular. But my guys body language and comms are telling me they still think there is a d side presence. So we are off on the count. Mike Brown gets out of the corner, probably because he knows the snake is hot and doesn’t want to get pinched if there is an unknown D side asset for the Men. Aaron Pate uncharacteristically dies but we start to turn the field shooting the bounce to take the first snake player. Another valiant effort by the last snake player to make something happen but just two many guns. 4-0 Canes.
We test the gun, Nic makes the snake and shoots the Ironmen’s snake player. However, Ironmen use that center brick again and catch Nic’s pack as he gets to 50 snake. At the same time, we lose Mike Brown out of that insert dorito near back center. We press the issue snake side not checking the center off and pay for it. Drew Bell and Stuart Ridgel try to stem the bleeding but the Men finally slow it down, check in, and squeeze the point. Ironmen get on the board. 4-1 Canes
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Back to base with our guns up and sure enough, kill three on the break (we shot one snake way, we shot one in the center, and we shot one dside). The coaching staff for the Men let’s it play out though and I understand the call. Perhaps one of your two remaining guys picks a guy off or the Canes get a penalty… we shoot the last two and the Men concede the point with 4:55 remaining on the clock. 5-1 Canes.
Obviously the Men have to press so we move a chess piece to the first wedge dorito side to slow options down snake way and shoot for any secondary fills. And we position our juice box to maintain honesty D side. Other than that, the song remains the same. We shoot two on the break again, win another gunfight almost immediately after that, followed by another… five on one and the Ironmen concede the point. 6-1 Canes.
At this junction, I would be very happy to get out of the match with a mercy rule win since my initial paint estimate is looking to be perfect (the number of cases I told the pit crew we would need for the match). And we have not had to show much at all before our second match. I figure we go base play, turn two guns in, two guns out, with safety valve and let the men kill themselves. But, the Ironmen had other plans. We get a kill out of the center but we let them take big real estate on the snake as well as the D side. My two center players get stuck and eliminated and well… next thing you know, they put another one up on us. 6-2 Canes.
We were in X-ball now (what’s new, we always end up with at least 1-2 matches at events going into X-ball). I had a strange thought in my head at that moment. I’m always looking for the psychological edge and I remember thinking to myself, what is going on in their pit right now? I know Shane and Pax well as they are two of my first mentors not to mention close friends. I finally met Nicki and spoke to her this event. I enjoyed speaking with her but I didn’t grab much insight. And I figured Slowiak has to be part of the conversation as I had finally had the opportunity to speak to him and see him in his element. He has a big personality and would most certainly give his 2 cents. There I am thinking they were obviously over there discussing what to do down 6-2 with 3:46 left. Would there be concordance? Would their be differing opinions? Would there be doubt? What could I do to ensure we put this one away… I think that is one of the things I love most about my guys during a match. Our efficiency. We don’t have any doubt in our game plan. We make the call and my guys produce the center kill.
But… two of my guys catch mystery balls and the point quickly devolves into a 3 on 3 and then a 3 on 2! My guys are stacked in snake side can and the god bunker with Ironmen who have two in the snake and a D side asset that is quickly taking ground. But the two I have left? Daniel “Clutch” Camp and Aaron “Hold My Beer” Pate. Numbers 2 and 3 on the Canes gun fighting list…
Not that any of that came into play though…
No, instead, an Ironmen player runs to the side of the bunker that Pate is holding a lane for the D side. He and Pate trade but he continues his run to shoot Danimal. Red bird of death flies and the swing point is awarded to us. 7-2 Canes
2:14 on the clock, the score is 7-2. I’m thinking we are getting out of this match with a win so, why show anything else. We have seen great success with our pocket guns on the break. I believe I had said earlier in the match that our base play beat their haymaker 9 out of 10 times. The guys agree and we get ready to go to work. I needlessly point out that if we see opportunities to gain ground and put ourselves into position to get that buzzer… full send. We shoot both their wide players in exchange for one of ours. 4 on 3 advantage to us. But I think it was Hughes who tries to flip the script by coming on our side of the snake. However, we have a call for this scenario as we saw it often in practice. The code is given and we hammer the bounce shot eliminating Mr. Hughes who also draws a minor. We had peeled off another one prior to the flag leaving my guys alone on the field to walk down and seal the deal.
VS Notorious
I will admit that this one had me a little nervous though I would never admit it during the event. We are close with the Notorious program and Ryan Gray has become a good friend. We made a gentleman’s wager on the match and I was broke. I hope this isn’t taken in a derogatory manner by any of the Notorious crew but it felt like a little brother/big brother match up. And that’s how we approached it. We had scouted their match against the MLKings and felt we had a good read. Knowing how each other thinks and plays though can be both advantageous as well as disadvantageous. And that would play out during this match.
First point we decide we want a snake presence early. Notorious goes short but takes the center 50 brick on the break. But he doesn’t seem to know which side he wants to shoot and we make it in. He posts up snake side, perhaps waiting for a secondary. We shoot Archie out of the center on the break (they were going to get his gun up and then send speed demon underneath no doubt) and I believe we get a ball on Ty Batemen in the dorito corner. Notorious’ newest pick up, Harris Husein, quickly back-fills Ty’s old spot. Markie then tries to fill out to snake corner but gets picked up. We had discovered the center earlier and Stu decides to go trade as Nic Ripple, German snake player extraordinaire, closes out the point. This all happened in the span of less than a minute. 1-0 Canes
The rest of the match would not go as smoothly as that first point. Notorious comes out swinging next point sending Archie to the snake and shooting two of us on the break. We catch Arch in the gap but Markie makes a good read and gets into the snake almost immediately. Notorious has body advantage and position now. Markie shoots Stu out of back center leaving us with the snake side can and the dorito corner. Hussien is now in the snake with Markie and that combo crops Drew Bell. Mike Brown learned his lesson from Texas and makes the decision for me by moving forward and attacking. Tied now 1-1.
The next point would prove to be a grinder. We trade two of our bodies for one of theirs giving Notorious a 4 on 3 advantage. The battle for the snake had begun and Nic was in S2 for us and Archie was in S2 for Nototious. But then my guys just start dying out of spots. As a coach, I usually meet my guys at the net as they come off if I see something that was uncharacteristic or I don’t know what happened. This was one of those times. We had spoke about this after the Ironmen match. We have to be tighter and leverage our gun discipline. Pate gets to the snake corner to contain allowing Britt in the dorito wedge to dump paint into the pinball machine that is the snake 50 hoping to catch Archie if he got sloppy. Nic re-positions to 2nd snake mini brick to get his eyes up in front of him. Notorious gets Jared Sherman in there with Archie so they definitely have the advantage. But we even it up when Archie takes the walk. With the 3 on 3 spread, unless someone wins a gun fight, this was going to be a long point and it was. Nic moves again to S1 but I don’t think we knew about the next body in the snake. When Pate joins Nic in the snake, I thought to myself, okay here we go, now we have it. Unfortunately, Britt gets picked up on a bounce shot. Ty starts to figure out he can go and begins taking ground D side. Harris joins Jared in the snake and Ty beats Pate’s cross field gun. THERE WAS A FIRE FIGHT! Nic actually did bounce Ty as he runs in to get the buzzer. Notorious takes the point. 1-2 Notorious.
LVL and Damage finally give us a little time to game plan and we take advantage of it. Call it statistics, gut feeling, or simply knowing what we would probably do, we key up on the snake corner and it pays off as we shoot what I think was Anthony Bowles. Daniel Camp fills out to snake corner for us while Stuart Ridgel keeps a lock on the head of the snake. Mike Brown applies pressure by taking D3 while Drew and Pate just keep dumping paint. Daniel knows the deal and feeds snake. He gets to snake 50 and gets two kills almost instantly. This leaves Notorious with dorito corner and snake can. This allows Stu, Drew, and Pate to come off jobs and join the fray. Harris gets a running start and leaps on his own sword taking Mr. Camp with him. My other three dispatch the last remaining Notorious player. Tie ball game 2-2.
We run a little “switcharoonie” on the next point. We get Daniel into the snake and release Stu a little earlier than normal. This works out well as Notorious does not go snake and we dig a kill out of the center. Daniel does a patient creep to the snake 50 and peels off Archie in the god bunker. Once he does this he immediately posts up on the snake side can (they were on the cross) who would have seen Archie die and have to come off his job to contest the obvious snake threat. The tactic works and Daniel gets another kill. This allows Daniel to stand tall, apply pressure to dorito corner, whom he shoots. Regrettably, the center juice box player (was it Alex Hubert?) gets caught in the crossfire and draws a minor. This means Notorious will be playing a body down the next point. Score 3-2 Canes
With 2 minutes left in the match, down by one, and us on the power play, we know they are going snake. We decide to get guns up with the plan to match on a delay. They make it in and somehow get three in there! And we end up losing our delay. All in the first 20 seconds! Me and two others in the pit swear we see a hit come off Harris and so does the ref. A minor goes up and that makes the three in the snake now 1. Archie gets on his stomach and posts up to shoot any fill into the snake with him. What he doesn’t know is his two players behind him have been eliminated. Stu gets the memo, goes to counter Archie, can’t see him and simply decides to just hit the buzzer. Score 4-2 Canes.
Stu didn’t let the time go under so I think there were still 13 seconds on the clock. We settle in for the oncoming onslaught. Notorious does the right thing, acts like it is 1854 at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War and they are the English Light Brigade Calvary. That would make us the Russians. Game.
*Zen Note – hats off to Ryan and the Notorious camp for making Sunday their 3rd pro event in and a 10th place finish.
VS ML Kings
We had done our homework on Kings. They had beat Houston Heat the day before after losing to Notorious so we wanted to understand the adjustment. One thing that was immediately noticeable when studying their tape were their guns off the break. We would plan to adjust for that. We noticed one other minor adjustment they had made and from their we planned on how to counter with our own small adjustment.
First point we wanted to give a slightly different look to throw them off from their scouting us. We knew that Carter liked to go to the snake corner, round it and crawl up to the snake. We take the snake and the center for three reasons: one, we use the center to shoot Carter and two, have the safety valve of having a snake asset in place to counter him if we miss. The third was to screw with their scouting sheets. I can be petty like that sometimes. It works as planned as we shoot Carter and begin peeling bodies. Kings concede the point 37 seconds in. 1-0 Canes
We get to see those solid guns of the Kings on the break next point as they shoot one and then we get a minor. So a fast 5 on 2 for the kings who answer and close the point out. Tied 1-1.
We pull back to base but with a D side rabbit. It appears the Kings had the same breakout but not the same goal. We lose one on the break but Pate gets into the snake. Pate’s presence seems to draw a lot of guns (all of them?). Pate misses two opportunities which we talked about after and he laughed…well, he didn’t laugh but if you know Pate… Kings filter to first D side wedge and it appears they are looking to try and lock the field up. Daniel Camp gets the memo and joins Pate in the snake since the Kings are so focused on Pate. We pinch out the D side attacker making it a 4 on 4. The inset wedge player for Kings decides there are plenty of guns to contain snake so he fills out into the dorito 2 in an effort to plug that hole. Pate wins the gunfight against Woodley who was in the snake can and proceeds to wrap and trap the god. Pate sneaks another one in on Kings’ home player. Barry tries to get crafty but Daniel had anticipated the maneuver. Danimal had moved to the inside of Pate and posted up for the cross shot and lands it. Kings concede to save time on clock. 2-1 Canes.
The Kings are sticking with the game plan they used to beat Heat. So we put a gun for snake runner and plan on matching him. We get the shot on the King’s snake player and have it to our own with two players. Nic can stay dorito way, Daniel is in there with him and can control wire, Britt is in wedge to control center and any late fill attempts… now we let the Kings run into guns. Charlie recognizes what we are up to and smartly concedes the point. 3-1 Canes
We are up two points with just under 5 minutes on the clock. Plenty of time and not necessary for anything too desperate from the Kings yet. But this layout on the break is like playing rock, paper, scissors. We decide to spread the field, dig in like an Alabama tick, and hope to catch the King’s push. The Kings take the snake and the center. Kyle Barry loses a gun fight dorito side and takes an early walk. I was not upset about that. We pick up on the center and start shooting the bounce. Sure enough, one of them finds a home on Woodley’s pack. Minor penalty goes up and we are now up bodies 5 on 2. Unfortunately, Ridgel gets team killed going to assassinate the last two and Pate finally allows that mini cake to get too small. One of the last two Kings takes a walk. As the last King tries to push through the guns of Bell and Camp, Mike Brown shows good situational awareness and just goes and gets the buzzer. 4-1 Canes.
Both of us get 5 out alive. The Kings cleverly filter Woodley from home under the gun to the snake after taking the snake corner and putting the wedge in play. Woodley is joined by another King (Calleja maybe?) but as soon as that happens we shoot their Wedge over watch. We give them one back as Stu takes the walk shortly after. Then Woodley and Calleja put together a smart push and just start stacking my guys. 4-2 with approximately 50 seconds left.
We know the push is coming snake way so we get guns up on it and it pays off. We get the one and the secondary snake fill as well. We had discussed prior to this point that, if we had the body advantage at 20 seconds, lets go and try to get that point to better our spread. Stuart and Pate finish off the last and Ryan Williamson flies in to get the point. A well executed match. We didn’t have to show too much, we got away with a fun play on the first point, and now we are feeling it.
VS Heat
This is the match we were looking forward to. Heat has got the best of us 3 out of the last 4 meetings and we wanted them to know we are getting better and better with each lesson. We knew we had made Sunday so it was time to reach into our bag of tricks and show the paintball world why we are here. We had a completely different strategic approach for this game based off being able to scout them for 3 matches. We saw some things we wanted to exploit and we would get the opportunity. But as always, whenever you are playing Heat, you are playing some of the best to ever play the game. So we would have to execute at a higher level than we had been. But the Canes are dangerous when we are having fun and we were in a really good mood. That, and if you had scouted us for three matches, you didn’t see too much.
The first point Heat does what we thought they would do. We make a stack audible and shoot Federov off the break. They went short snake way but we didn’t. We go straight to the 50 and wrap but keep pressure on the interior. That generates another kill from Heat’s back center. We pick up Tyler on the fill out to snake can and Connor Kelley gets the minor to finish the point. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to set the pace, bloody the nose a little bit, impose our will. 1-0 Canes
The next point both teams mirror each other up and we both shoot a player out of the back center. We know we have to keep the pressure and keep paint in the air early. We end up shooting Conner Kelley giving us the 4 on 3 advantage. We were in complete control now. Heat’s center juice box has to contain D side. Chad George is now dominated by two snake side guns, and Federov is dominated by two D side guns. Then we make a blunder. Daniel sees the opportunity to feed the snake and really put Heat on their heels. But this doesn’t get communicated to Pate who starts a rope on Chad as Daniel launches. That rope finds the side of Daniel’s head. Yes… I met both Daniel and Pate at the net for that one 😉 But Britt makes up for it by shooting Chad George as he tries to sneak his way in the snake. Federov then tries to go coast to coast on his own back line and eats one. We are now in a 3 on 1 scenario and I’m expecting Todd to blow the horn any second. And he does. 2-0 Canes
We decide now is the time to give Heat a special look. I wish I could take credit for it but Stu is the one that suggested hitting the gas. And I will always listen to my guys when they are feeling it. And man did the initial execution of the play look pretty. We kill two on the break but lose one. Heat owns the first baby dorito, the snake can and the god bunker. But we have two in the snake with support and the juice box with eyes on D side for containment (or so we thought). Obviously, it would have been stronger had we not lost the body but still, we are set up. We set the trap, and Harmon takes the cheese and gets shot by Nic. However, while this is happening, Captain America, Ryan Moorehead is moving down the D side. Stuart makes a tactical retreat and over slides the bunker. Ryan gets a shot in on him. But Chad George saw the cheese that killed his teammate and says to himself, I want some of that cheese too and gets clipped as well. Now it’s a 3 on 1 with Moorehead on our side of the field. Nic starts moving for the buzzer. Todd Martinez knows the deal and concedes the point with just under 5 minutes left. 3-0 Canes.
Now we are really feeling it. But we know from practice, you can score points in less than 30 seconds (Diesel had done this to us – fastest we did was 38 seconds). And Heat was about to give it one hell of try. As Matty Marshall likes to say, they are known for stealing matches. We match up and trade center players. The only issue is, our snake containment was who we lost on the break…and we didn’t change jobs fast enough. Heat has this really good balanced attack and they show it on this point. Heat gets into the snake and Federov presses the issue D side. Daniel takes the walk allowing Federov to press further. He continues to press and closes out the point shooting out snake can and Home after we lost D side corner. 3-1 Canes
With 2:19 left on the clock, and down by 2, Heat will more than likely risk two assets. Being ahead, we decide to risk one asset and get guns up. Both teams kill one on the break but Heat makes the snake. But then we lose our D side attacker. 4 on 3. We get another back. 3 on 3. Heat starts the push and the guys are holding. Pew pew pew! Bodies are dropping everywhere! Its a 2 on 2! Daniel shoots Chad George but Tyler Harmon shoots Drew.
Now before I say anything further, I want you the reader to know I was standing dead even with Daniel Camp in the pit. There is a ref on the base line looking towards me and Daniel. So the ref and I both had good views. There was a second ref who was in position as well just off corner.
Daniel transitions to the inside of his bunker as Tyler tries to bunker him. The exchange is BANG BANG! We are talking micro seconds. The two refs ON THE FIELD call it a mutual. No point. 3-1 Canes.
Or so we thought…
The Head Ref listens to a dead player (Tyler) as he walks off the field complaining. We are already in the pit drawing up the next play. Damage and Dynasty are coming back on the field for their next point. The Damage/Dynasty point starts. We are a minute into the Damage/Dynasty match and we have just completed drawing up our next play when Ultimate Ref Jason Trosen taps me on the shoulder and says, “Mike, the head ref has overturned the call on the field. You guys get a major and will be playing with three.” I plead the case that the refs were in position to see that it was bang bang. How can the Head ref, who is in a camera stand just off center of the field, see through the bunker (can) on how the exchange went down? Jason says he will review the tape but that it has to be “indisputable” to overturn the Head Refs call. So we prepare a play with 3 guys and a play with 5 guys. Jason reviews it and says my players gun was down and we will be starting with 3… it is what it is.
If they can play reindeer games, so can we. My guys come up with a clever ploy as a little “poke in the eye” of the establishment. At 25 seconds, two of my guys start to run on the field with their gear saying, “They over turned it!” with absolutely no intention of stepping in bounds or breaking the 50. This panics Heat, and they call a time out. We were giggling a bit. Talk about icing the kicker… Ultimately, we get a good laugh out of it and that’s about it. Heat launches the power play. We make our spots and start to wheel and deal. We get 1 and then …another. It’s looking good but then a hopper hit gets us the minor letting Heat close out with 35 seconds left.
We know you can win a point on this layout quickly. As I stated earlier, our fastest clocked at practice was 38 seconds. So we keep those plays ready. And were was the litmus test opportunity. The full send works but it turns out you need about 37 seconds (there was only 35 left). So 2 seconds short on winning that point.
I remember thinking…we are already Sunday club bound. And we have overcome a lot of adversity to get here. You’re Todd Martinez and you look around at that stable of talent in your pit… and you are probably telling yourself, you win this scenario 7, maybe 8 times out of 10? You like those odds. So you’re probably going to get your 5 out alive in a pocket, maybe risk one asset but lean on your gun-fighting to win the day. And I would agree that is probably the right call. But we are the New Orleans Hurricanes and we know that you know that we know you know this. “They will never see it coming. These guys don’t have to fight every day like we do. They fight to win paintball games. We fight to live, to eat, to put food on the table! We are not the same. Lets show them.” I didn’t really say that but I felt it inside…Kinda. And isn’t that what this world has become? All feelings based or some stuff like that? Anyway, I digress…
We throw Britt Simpson into Dorito 2 on the break and Nic Rippel into the snake, we get two guns up at home, and take the snake side can. Heat goes short snake side with god, snake can, two at home, and a rabbit out to D corner who quickly takes the 2nd dorito. Our statistics were right again. The stage is set. I knew if we survived the break we would win. And we did. They shoot Stuart out of the center but before they can call the kill, we shoot Conner out of the god and Nic wraps the 50 snake to shoot Tyler Harmon in the face. 4 on 3 advantage to us. Federov sneaks a ball onto Britt making it a 3 on 3. But with Nic on their side of the snake, Daniel Camp sneaks up into the snake as well and catches Federov napping. This frees Pate up to take ground through the dorito side center cut. Pate shoots Dizon in the snake can leaving Mishka by himself in the juice box. Pate launches drawing Mishka’s gun but Pate misses. Daniel launches forcing Mishka to contend with him allowing Nic to give Mishka a winning back message. We were all excited and I let it go this time. I even joined in.
We were now undefeated in prelims for the second time in our pro careers, had won our bracket for the third time (Chicago ’22, Lonestar, and this event), and had made our 3rd Sunday in a row this season (5 total out of 8 events). We were feeling good, had met two goals for the event, and were within striking distance of another goal for the year. But we would need to do some homework, get some rest, and be at the field early to scout the winner of the wildcard match featuring Damage/Revo.
I was confident Damage was going to beat Revo. But NRG Elite had caught the boys from Florida a little flat footed and Revo has proven they can be a spoiler in the past. But not this time. It was sheer dominance from the Damage camp. We watched Damage’s loss to Dynasty and cross referenced that against what we watched them do against Revo. With that data, we felt very good going into the match as we felt there were some opportunities in Damage’s breakouts we could exploit to take better position, and to win that “scramble” on the break.
VS Damage
First point we knew Damage would go short. We also felt confident we would make the snake. We double the gun snake way and break snake. We get our kill on the snake can, place an asset to keep Keith out of the snake, and Nic Ripple goes straight to the 50 snake looking to wrap and trap. Phase 1 complete. Phase 2 is to get Daniel in the snake with Nic. We know we can sneak Mike Brown out to the corner and get a small push that way as well. Damage has the god bunker, home, inset dorito, and a dorito corner who quickly makes dorito 1. Daniel joins Nic within the first 40 seconds of the point, Mike Brown has already snuck out and eventually gets to dorito 2, Stu has the cut between god and snake, and Drew has doritos. The guys are executing pretty flawlessly. We are now set up to pressure and squeeze Damage all within the first minute and a half. Then, at almost 4 minutes in, Nic gets clipped hopping. This is not the end of the world though. It’s a 4 on 4 and we still own position. Mike Brown is now in dorito 3 and gets a shot in on Keith. But it bounces… Jason Edwards gets out of home and into the snake can and Keith decides now’s the time to get out of Dodge and into the snake. Stuart re-positions into snake can to support Daniel. Jason counters and fills the snake corner. The next exchange to go down is between Daniel and Keith. Personally, I felt as if Daniel got the best of Keith but it is what it is. Mutual exchange in the snake. 3 on 3. Stuart reads the situation and takes the snake 50 but didn’t see Jason Edwards move to the 1st snake brick nor does he hear Mike Brown calling it. Jason gets the drop on Stu quickly followed by Mike Brown catching a ball as well. Six and a half minutes into the point, I concede it. We should have won that point. We all knew it. I think Damage knew it too. But their gun fighting skills mixed with our mistakes snatched that one away from us. Still plenty of paintball left to play. 0-1 Damage.
Damage recognizes they don’t want us in the snake early and in order to ensure that doesn’t happen, they put three guns shooting that way. Rainey in the pocket, Jason from home, and I’m pretty sure their center juice box was shooting that way too. This successfully chews up our snake side. With over 8 minutes on the clock and only being down by 1, I’m going to give my remaining 3 at least a minute to a minute and a half to pull something off. Especially since Stu starts pressing the issue D side. But they get a shot in on one of my guys leaving us in a 2 on 5. I concede the point at just under 7. Time to take a deep breath and regroup. 0-2 Damage.
Point three was another point we should have had in the bag. We’re pretty sure Damage is going to get guns up, make primaries and lock it down. And for the most part, we call it right. We get Britt into the inset wedge and Nic out to the snake corner. They peel Aaron Pate off which is an issue for the game plan but not the end of the world, especially since we shoot Keith in our first engagement. 4 on 4 but I see Chad round that dorito corner. Luckily, he posts up at the first dorito. Nic takes the snake but Rainey makes a good move to the snake corner. We catch Rainey getting a bit sloppy. 4 on 3 advantage us. I’m feeling confident we are going to win this point. Jason Edwards makes his way out to the snake corner while he still has Chad in the dorito 1 and a dorito corner. Britt gets outside to dorito 2, Drew gets behind Nic in snake can and Stu gets over dorito way with Britt. Good, we are positioning correctly to bully Jason. Britt and Stu have pressed the action dorito side and Britt gets a kill on Jason in the corner. Outstanding. 4 on 2 our favor, let’s close as a team. But then I hear it. We have the kill count wrong. It’s kill 3 but my guys are calling kill 2. This is not good, especially for us and the clock. And then Britt loses a gun fight. We still have Nic and Drew in the snake and Stu to keep the two Damage players in front of him honest. But then we force the issue snake way and Nic gets picked up. 2 on 2, Stu sees the seam and launches but his timing is just off as Damage turns just in time to pick him up and he takes no one with him. Drew tries. I concede. 0-3 Damage.
We’ve been here before. We know how to do this. We know what has to happen, we know the deal. With just over 3 minutes and 3 points needed to win, we have the play and we know we will get away with it at least once. We need to win in no more than a minute 10. We know Damage is confident with a lock down. We get two guns up on Keith and get the kill then flood the snake side with assets and use one gun D side as we are confident Chad will hole up at dorito corner on the cross (he actually went inset dorito which was even better). Nic gets to their side of the snake and goes to work. His first victim is home. Stu, whose one gun is D side containment, filters to center 50 to continue his containment but this also put himself in position for a launch if necessary. He knows that center juice box is the hold up and trades his body for it. Camp is now with Nic and launches to get the last two. Drew Bell cruises in to hit the buzzer. We took approximately 20-25 seconds more than I would have liked. But a point is a point and we can work with it. 1-3 Damage.
We go back to our first play. We get the kill on Rainey again and Nic goes straight to the 50 snake. But Chad gets to the dorito 2. I should have anticipated that and that’s on me. That cross shot shuts down any center push and has a great bounce shot into the snake. And sure enough, he catches Stu on the center push. Nic makes a great shot on Keith Brown. I’m watching the clock figuring we have to win in the next 10 seconds to give ourselves a shot to tie. Drew backs up Nic in an attempt to bully a gun and get another body. They shoot the home just as we lose Britt on the d side making it a 2 on 2. At this point it is around 20 seconds or so and its for pride. A valiant effort by Nic and Drew but Damage survives as the clock hits zero.
Congratulations to Damage. What an absolutely gritty and determined event for them. They fought tooth and nail all event and showed us what it takes to win on Sunday. Thank you for the lesson gentlemen. Well done. Hats off to that team. As I was apt to say in the booth while commentating on the semis, “Incredible”.
Jocko Willink says that, “When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.” And he is absolutely, 100% correct. This is the root of the Hurricanes success. Our camaraderie isn’t by accident. It’s our culture. We have a strong sense of trust, accountability, and togetherness with each other and when it comes to the team’s goals, we make sure we are all on the same page and in sync before we take the first step. I’ve said it 100 times and I will say it 1000 more, I’m lucky to be part of this team. They deserve credit for their hard work and determination. I ask for 150%, they give me 200. And I love them for it.
To finish where we started this blog, there is a saying, “The largest room in the world is the room for improvement”. We have walked through several of those rooms and will continue to open door after door. We ARE improving. Every event is a new lesson, and we pay attention to those lessons. We are students of the game and we are learning at an exponential rate. We win as a team and we learn as a team. Again, proud of my guys composure and discipline this event. But we recognize we need a little more. So we are going to go find it, learn it, grow from it, and be better for it. See everyone in Chicago.
2020 was a pooch. But there was one thing that came out of that season that I remember with great affection. The New Orleans Hurricanes won the coveted World Cup of paintball in the Semi Pro division. I call it the “covid cup” because we were neck deep in the pandemic and only had 2 events that year. 19 teams showed up in the semi pro division for that event, down 6 teams from the Vegas event, including Camp Factory (TonTons). The team went 4-0 in the prelims outscoring our opponents 22-7 which included Annapolis A team (4-2) and the New England Hurricanes (5-0). On Sunday, we would outscore our next 3 opponents 17-8 winning against TCP machine (5-4 in quarters) Indianapolis Mutiny (6-3 in Semis) and the finals match against the New Jersey Jesters (6-1).
2nd place
I was aware of the legacy I had joined. The history of the N.O. Canes (Formerly the Gulf Coast Hurricanes) is quite storied. Believe it or not, the team is 5 years old. There is a pedigree there that some may not be familiar with. Players from Rock-It-Kids, Warped Army, Chicago Aftershock, Birmingham PRIME, and St. Louis Avalanche.
They began their career by entering the semi pro division in 2016. With most of the core players having Division 1 and some Professional experience, they believed they would be competitive. However, they would be served a big slice of humble pie. They were quickly shown to be unprepared finishing in the back of the pack the first few events. When the 2016 NXL World Cup came around, the team decided (appropriately) to play Division 2. Once again, they received another rude awakening. They were beaten in their first match Sunday morning finishing the event in 11th place (I know as my team Birmingham Prime took 2nd at the event in D2). It became painfully obvious they had a lot of work to do. This was hands down THE BEST THING that could have happened to the organization at the time. Sometimes in life, you have to fail in order to learn how to succeed.
After that first season, they re-evaluated their goals, swallowed their pride, and began the 2017 season in Division 2 of the NXL. They put in the work and we were rewarded with their first win on the national stage. They took 1st Place in the 2017 NXL Chicago Open. Interesting fact, this was my official introduction to the ‘Canes as I was invited down for a 2 day clinic prior to the event. I will never forget it because team members Matt Hamilton and Drew Bell showed me a great time. BTW – at Chicago – the ‘Canes would knock my team out in the Ochos! Some “thank you”…
World Cup Champions 2020
Once again, they decided to stay in Division 2 for the 2018 season and ended up taking 2nd at Las Vegas, 5th at the Texas Open and rounded out the season with a 1st Place finish at World Cup.
The team would rebrand themselves as the New Orleans Hurricanes for future marketing and set their sights on the NXL’s Pro Division. They made the bump up to Semi-Pro in 2019. They would finish the season in 3rd place for the series. The year consisted of a 3rd place in Vegas, 5th Place in Texas, 3rd place in Philadelphia, an 11th place stumble in Chicago, and 6th place at World Cup. Not how they envisioned the season, but they knew if they wanted to win they would have to work even harder. And maybe add a little something extra (hint hint wink wink zen something or another).
When they first asked me to coach, I remember thinking, “Why?” These guys already had a winning program. But the more I talked and became familiar with this team, the more I realized we were very similar in approach and philosophy. Compatible systems you might say.
The team knows that, in order to be successful, you must have a culture that emphasizes several positive components. Components such as motivation, persistence, and determination. However, in the New Orleans Hurricane camp, those components are tempered with even more important aspects such as integrity, honor, sacrifice, and generosity. It isn’t just about winning. It is also about the pursuit of bettering ourselves and those around us, on and off the field and achieving the results in a way we can be proud of. Benjamin Franklin said that “Well done is better than well said.” In other words, don’t tell us, show us. We couldn’t agree more. Every member is held to a standard and there is no deviation. Steel sharpens steel and we lift each other up and hold one another accountable. Each member brings strengths that will ultimately lead us to our organizational objectives. Those objectives will be met with hard work, resilience, and faith in one another. And that is our mission – to succeed. But not just in the traditional understanding with wins on the field. We want to have a positive impact on our sport and in our communities. To represent our friends, families, and our sponsors in a positive,meaningful way and to make them proud.
FACTS
“WINNING” is a mindset and a process. Not a RESULT. Not achieving a result is no excuse to abandon the PROCESS of getting better. Achieving a goal is not an excuse to become complacent and abandon the mindset that helped you get there. We expect all members to want to excel all the time. There is never an END to this process.
And that is why I coach the New Orleans Hurricanes. I love these guys and this program. You will not find a more blue collar, hard working team. And I am proud to be a part of such a program. You don’t find a group of guys like this often. It’s quite rare really. I’ve succeeded in doing it twice now. I know I am blessed.
With that said, let’s take a look at this season so far. We already talked about World Cup 2020… lets start with 2021.
Sunshine State Major We went 4-0 in the prelims outscoring our opponents 24-6 (mercy ruling 3 of our 4 opponents). We won our quarter final match with a controlled game and then stumbled in the semis and finals. We lost both matches in overtime to Crisis and Mutiny. A 4th place finish but a top 4 finish none the less. Goal 1 secured. I guess I should mention we set the goal of finishing within the top 4 of every event at the beginning of the season.
Click the youtube link for a recap of the Sunshine State Open
Mid Atlantic Major This event was tough but not because of the team. This was failed leadership on my part. I take full responsibility for the teams performance at this event. Whether it was my play calling, personnel calling, my scouting, whatever, no excuses, I messed up on a few fronts and I own that. However, this event is what would ultimately set the table for Chicago… but I digress. The team went 3-1 during the prelims dropping a match to a pretty dominant looking Annapolis A-team (6-3). 20 points scored by us versus 15 points scored by our opponents is not the stat a coach wants to wake up to on Sunday. But there we were, another Sunday (our 12th straight). We would pull the New England Hurricanes for the Ochos match first thing that morning. The matches in Semi pro are 15 minutes long… We won by mercy rule 10-5. That’s approximately a minute per point. A Helluva match. We would go on to mercy the Noobies in quarters 6-1. We were feeling confident as we had finally (or so we thought) found our groove on this layout. We would get mercy ruled for the first time 7-2 by Annapolis A-team who would go on to win the event. We would then turn around and, once again, lose by 1 point to the great off the break shooting of Arsenal taking our second 4th place for the season.
Click the youtube link for a recap of the Mid Atlantic Open
The Windy City Major The table was now set. The 3rd event of the season was a make or break moment for us. And we were determined to put in the work. The first issue came when three of my players had life events that could not be avoided. Work, family, and health all come first in our program. These three players all had a life occurrence that would keep them from participating in this event. I wasn’t too concerned since the team does have depth and had no doubt they would step up. We would still need a little help snake way though, just to be safe. So I called an old friend from my past to help us out (shout out to Aaron Barnes). We were in a good spot.
Then Hurricane Ida decided to make land fall on August 29th… the Sunday before the layout drop. $95 billion in damages, homes and businesses destroyed, flooding, power outages… The New Orleans Hurricanes are based out of Slidell, LA just 30 miles north of New Orleans. As you can imagine, the team was adversely affected. We couldn’t reach some of our teammates for a few days due to phones being down. Talk about nerve-racking. The following weekend, we had to move practice north and into Alabama. Unfortunately, but certainly understandably, only 5 players would make that practice. And on top of that, the new pick up for the event, Aaron Barnes, contracted Covid keeping him from practice as well. So we did what we could to make the best out of the weekend and up the learning curve. I pushed those guys hard. The second layout weekend we had all the roster we would have for the event. So we got after it, playing a tremendous amount of points.
Hurricane Ida was a *@#$%
Day 1 (Friday) We would meet our old friends the New Jersey Jesters in the first match winning by mercy rule 5-0. We hadn’t had a chance to scout them so it was a matter of doing our thing. We were hitting our shots, executing well, slow steady pressure, and finishing strong with good communication mid game. A good start.
The next match would be against a familiar team. I coached CEP to their Division 2 series win in 2019. I am close friends with those cats and now they were being coached by a good friend who knows my process pretty well. Shout out to I-75 Alex Hicks. Something no one knew outside of our team was that player Jacob Searight, one of our two D-side attackers for this layout, couldn’t play this match. He is getting his PHD/Doctorate or whatever brainy smart stuff he does and had to be on a zoom call for a peer review! Crazy… I know. We would win the match 4-2 but not after another catastrophe… my other 1/attacker on the D-side, Britt Simpson, would dislocate his knee during the 3rd point and had to be carried off the field. *Zen note – even though he was in excruciating pain, he would not let the ref pull him. Instead, he communicated with his 2 (Drew Bell) and they worked together to get Drew down the field to finish and win the point. Shout out to my player and friend Justin Bailey for stepping up and playing the spot like a boss.
Hurricane Ida… Covid…work/family obligations… and now this injury. It appeared the world was against us. But all it did was stiffen our resolve. We got Britt taken care of and had a pretty serious team meeting that night. (Searight’s zoom call went well BTW!) Truth be told, I didn’t sleep. I just kept playing the next day’s games in my head. We had a good plan and we would have one more opportunity to scout our next two opponents to see if/how they adjusted.
Day 2 (Saturday) We would play Utah Bro Army the next morning. We had paid attention to their approach to the field and after watching their first match that morning, we were confident our previous scouting was sound and our game plan would prevail. And it did. Another mercy rule win (7-2). Shout out to those cats. Great group of guys.
And there they were… standing in front of us for the last prelim match. The team that gave us a 4th place finish at the first event of the season. We had beat them at World Cup, they had beat us at the Sunshine State Major. This was going to be epic to say the least. We knew we could win the break but we needed to connect cross field to win this match. We did both. We ended up beating Indianapolis Mutiny via mercy rule 5-0.
After day 2 we were sitting at 4-0 in the 1st seed with a 4.25 point margin. As luck would have it, by beating Mutiny 5-0, it knocked our friends the Jesters into the 8th seed. So they would be our first match Sunday morning. They would be prepared this time. But so would we. Anyone who thought differently would be considered, at least by me, daft.
Spine time
Day 3 (Sunday) Headed into Sunday morning and preparing for the match against the Jesters, we knew they were going to adapt. Unfortunately, there is only so many ways you could adapt on this layout. Being familiar with their squad and using statistical analysis, we called it. Those guys don’t quit, they are tenacious and I think that is what I love about them. We would mercy them 6-1.
We knew we would get the winner of the Noobies (4th place in series at this time) and the NE Hurricanes (3rd place in series at this time) match (I believe they were the 4th and 5th seed respectively). We watched the match intently. It was back and forth with the Noobies prevailing 4-3.
This was it. We were not walking away playing for 3rd and 4th again. And it was a knife fight. Back and forth, point for point. Headed into the final point of regulation time, the score is 3-3 with a little over a minute left. We make a last 20 second push, get the last kill, and hit the buzzer. I saw it, the team saw it, several people in the crowd saw it… we hit the buzzer with 1 second left. The ref gives our player a check and the thumbs up. YEAH! WE DID IT! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! SEMI FINAL SLUMP ENDED! WOO-HOO!
But wait… I get called over to the scorekeepers booth. The scorekeeper is overruling the call saying that no, by his clock, time had expired just as my player hit the buzzer. I didn’t even bother arguing or wasting any energy, Suit up boys, overtime. The call is the call and I respected it.
You’re not going to believe this but that point went all 5 minutes. But in the last 20 seconds it became a 3-1 advantage for the Noobies! It looked like the slump wasn’t over after all! But Jacob Searight got crafty and scored two quick kills, protected the buzzer, and traded with the last player. Wow! I picked a bad time to quite sniffin’ glue… (that’s a joke. Go watch the movie Airplane!)
So now it comes down to a 1v1 first blood win with 1 minute on the clock. Drew Bell steps up for the team, rolled his gun, got dominance, and even with refs following/chasing him the entire time bird-dogging (in their defense, they thought they saw some spray but he was clean) kept his opponent in the home bunker and on the defensive (in that players defense, I think he was exhausted), marched down the field, onto his opponents side of the field, and scored the elimination. Finals bound.
Never doubted it.
We are now headed to the finals. I think we finished the semi final match at 1:20pm? We were scheduled to play the finals against Blast Camp at 3:40 but they were running behind. We had scouted Blast Camp early knowing we may very well meet them and with good reason. That team has shown tremendous growth over the past two seasons. They took 7th place last year at World Cup losing to Crisis in the quarters. At the Sunshine State Major, they didn’t make it out of prelims placing 13th. They would turn around and right the ship at the Mid Atlantic NXL event taking 2nd place losing to Annapolis A team by 1. But then the Astra event happened. And they showed a new vigor that has propelled them to the forefront of a lot of paintball discussions about up and comers. And rightly so. Their strength is in their communication. It is top notch.
We knew going in we would have to be perfect. And we weren’t. We weren’t hitting our on the break shots (they were). We hadn’t drawn a penalty all weekend but got 3 in this match. And, just like Philly, our gas tanks ran out. We dug a hole we couldn’t get out of. But we never quit.
And we won’t.
World Cup is looming large. God willing, we will be back to full strength for that event. Preparation for the New Orleans Hurricanes started immediately after the loss to Blastcamp (By the way, congratulations to them, they played almost flawlessly).
Regardless of what came before or of what is yet to come, what matters most is how we choose to respond to what is in front of us…World Cup. There is no way this team lays down. You can most assuredly bet we will fight and finish strong. After all, starting strong is great… but finishing strong is epic. There will be those who say we don’t deserve it for this reason or that. I don’t care what they say. What they think is arbitrary. We are the only team that has been in the top 4 all three events. We have beat the top teams consistently. And we have done it against a lot of adversity. So, love us or hate us, I promise you this, we are here to play, we are here to win. John Dresser came into the pit just before the finals match. He looked at me and my old face and Britt on Crutches… then looked over our shoulders at the rest of the team and said, “Ya’ll aren’t spring chickens.” No, we are not. And that’s why you should respect us and our game. “Beware an old man in a young man’s game, he is there for a reason.” And if you pull us at Cup… you damn well better bring your best game because we hit above our weight class.
Zen and the Art of Paintball 