With an over all record of 6-1, team split comes in 1st out of 22 teams at Country Club Paintball’s Rookie tournament on Sunday, July 13th, 2003. The games were 5 minutes long; center flag (pick the flag up in the center, and bring it to the opposite side of the field.

Game 1: Split vs. E.T.

We were unsure of how well we would do on our first game. These guys we figured were pretty decent. One guy was an AGD tech, and had an X-mag, a nice ass gun. We started out not moving far down the field, bunkering down, and picking targets. Bill took him out on the right with a nice snapshot. Then John, playing center, picked off one ET on the left with a hopper shot. Shortly after that Scott, on the left nailed the guy in the center, and ran to get the flag. Scott captured the flag, and we won.

• Score: Split 100 / ET 0
• Kills: John: 1 / Scott: 1 / Bill: 1

Game 2: Split vs. AGD X

• All mags, blue jerseys, sponsored guys, these were the ones to beat we figured, the ones that we would fight to make it into the playoffs. The game started off, and they were putting down lots of paint. Scott bit it shortly in on a cross field shot. So John, in center of course, tried to come out and control the left in Scott’s absence. (All three of them went to the right/center side of the field). Probably hanging out too far, or trying really hard to avenge his teammate’s death, John took one in the gun and called himself out. After that, Billy, who was playing back right, was tore up in a 3 on 1. A paint check held him up for a minute and the AGD X team took note of this and moved in striking position. After the game, John talked about hitting the guy who took out Scott, and we found a break on one of the X guys, they were good sports and let us have the 10 points for that kill. Although it would have changed the course of the game to have John in and one opponent out, nothing we could do about it since the ref’s didn’t see it.
• Score: Split 10 / AGD X 100
• Kills: John: 1

Game 3: Split vs. Team Hostage

Team Hostage came into the game having won their previous one, and we thought they would put up a good fight. Scott was telling everyone to shoot from the start and try to pick people off on the run to their first bunker. He pulled this off, and so the game started with us already out to a lead. After this, John started calling out positions and we put down tons of fire, and shared some kills. I think we were arguing over who got who when the game got over, we probably just all put some paint on them. Don’t remember who pulled the flag to complete the game, but I think it was me.

• Score: Split 100 / Hostage 0
• Kills: Scott:2 / Bill: 1 (we argued over these kills, John may have aided one of Scott’s and Bill’s kills)

Game 4: Split vs. Aero Sparks

Aero wasn’t playing so hot, and so we figured we’d roll over them. They had kind of a bad game plan and left one guy uncovered when he moved way up the right and was putting serious fire down on bill. John spotted his hopper, and took him out with a shot that ended up curving a little around the bunker he was in and gogging him. The other two were way in the back and hiding from some major fire we were putting on them. Bill took a hit in the back right bunker, but it was of little consequence. John took the opportunity to pull the flag, and when he realized that no one even saw him do this, he kept on down the field and ran past a bunker with a guy in it, lighting him up. He then kept going (already 20 feet from the other team’s base) instead of stopping, shooting at the last guy (in the back right). Didn’t hit him (although I thought he said he took one in the foot), and right after John hung the flag, Scott gogged him with 3 shots, so bad he would have been completely blind, the ref had to clean his mask so he could get off the field. We didn’t get the points for the kill, cause they said we hung before he was eliminated. All in all, it was dominating game versus the only weak opponent in our division.

• Score: Split 90 / Aero 10
• Kills: John: 2 / Scott: technically 0 (but he would have had 3 points if they accounted for style)

Qualifying rounds recap: This put us tied for the division lead with E.T after all games were done. AGD X sputtered on their last two games, losing on a weird call in their bout with E.T. And then they ran out of time against Aero. Both Aero and AGD were teams that liked to sit back and spray paint, so they lost out on points. Since we beat ET, we took the lead over them, winning our division and going into the playoffs seeded sixth. We had the toughest bracket, we think.

Playoff quarterfinals: Split (#6) vs. Speedy Spedy (#3)

Speedy Spedy came in ranked number 3 in point totals, but they came in from a division filled with spyders and piranhas (lower level guns). They even talked to John before the game, and said they shouldn’t really have made the playoffs. We ruled this game. Speedy liked to hang out of their bunkers a little too much and we lit them up. Scott took out a guy who made a bad move in the beginning. John picked off the right corner. Billy then put heavy fire on the last guy in the center who needed to be checked by a ref. Billy then shot one of the refs twice as he didn’t know the check was going on. But it was Scott who took out the remaining guy in the center, and John confirmed it as he got up to leave (he wasn’t turned around, there are no dead men walking, you run off in the opposite direction). There was a little confusion as to any remaining men, and John ran up the whole right side looking to expose anybody and saw the 3 men dead and off to the side. He then called Scott and Bill up to finish the game with the flag capture. This meant we were playing for third or better! Even a decent loss against the next team and we would get a 3rd place trophy.

• Score: Split 100 / Spedy 0
• Kills: John: 1 / Scott: 2

Playoff semifinals: Split (#6) vs. E.T (#7)

See, we had a tough division! E.T. took out the number 2 team in a big way (rumor had it they had an amateur player on their team, and were undefeated up to that point in the tournament). E.T. Started off by moving all the guys to the right. (Maybe they saw what AGD X did to us?). John didn’t have any shots, so he moved to the right, in front of Bill and took heavy fire as Scott took one out. John dueled for a bit, but was shooting from his bad side when he got popped on the top of the head. Bill in the meantime moved more toward the center, unseen as John was keeping them occupied. Scott took out another guy (back right), and Billy popped him some more as he was leaving. After that, Bill popped him on a snap shot, and capped the flag. Awesome game and it guaranteed us first or second place. Before this game, one of the observers told us we were the only ones who would have a chance at taking out the #1 seed, and that we had to advance. Finals, here we come.

• Score: Split 100 / E.T. 10
• Kills: Scott: 2 / Bill: 1

Playoff Finals: Split (#6) vs. Skoant (#1)

John pulled some luck out of his ass, and we got our pick of the field and the side of the field we wanted. We went for the side we had won 4 games on in a row, and it proved to be big. But we had problems early on in the game. The bunker John was in took tons of fire and tipped over, giving him less cover and a weird angle to shoot out of. He was out within the first minute. Then Billy ran out of air (not enough time for a fill in between games). So it was up to Scott to take out 3 guys, using Bill as a decoy. And Scott went through them like hotcakes. With John out, two guys were putting serious fire on Scott. And both opponents ducked in to refill their hoppers, giving Scott some relief. One peeked out for a split second to check for Scott and got nailed with one shot; it was by far the best elimination of the day. Then the other moved over to take the eliminated players place, and got nailed in much the same way. With one guy left, Scott had to find out where he was so he stood up. He spotted the guy making a bad move and jacked him up with a number of shots. Scott started running for the other teams base, totally forgetting to pull the flag so he had to go back. He finished in front of a large crowd and we went home with first place trophies.

• Score: Split 100 / Skoant 10
• Kills: Scott: 3

Recap: We got mega compliments on the win, and people were definately impressed with Scott’s aim. We also got complimented on the way we moved around on the field, John got one for his huge move across the field on 2 guys. In the end, Scott was definately the MVP of the day. On a side note, the whole team went through about a case and a half of paint to win the tourney, there were individuals who went through that much in a single game, dont need tons of paint when you’ve got aim, apparently.

Final Kills:

• Scott: 9
• John: 5
• Bill: 3

Flag Hangs

• Scott: 3
• John: 2
• Bill: 1