Today Rob, Max, Steve,
Elier, Alex (for most of the day), Johnny, and I drove up to Spent Paintball in Palm Beach to try to face some tougher competition.
After all, you only get better by facing better opponents.
So the drive was simple, I got dropped off at Elier's, then we drove to Johnny's and switched cars, and then drove to Spent. It took us longer than expected to get up there, but it was all good we got to talk and feel better about the day.
We arrived a little later than expected, but it's alright since no one was playing games yet. The owner of Spent set us up with a nice team discount. Had he not, then I don't think our team could afford to practice there regularly. Thanks Spent! Really nice people up there. I've realized the farther North you venture in Florida; the nicer the people.
So we all geared up. Rob and Steve were late. Rob had my new team jersey so I wanted him to come so I could try it on for size. After about a 20 minute wait Rob finally arrives with Steve plus his camera friend. We all put on our new jerseys and started sporting them. Took some quick photos. We were then invited by the self-proclaimed "Loud Mouth Italian" to play some mock X-ball games. Since we had three teams there that day we would alternate with the winning team having two minutes to paint and air up.
We decided to walk the field first since we were expecting the Chicago layout. We didn't do a great job walking it in my opinion. Just a very basic "I'm going here, you're going there" type walk. I know in the future we need to walk fields more thoroughly. I was told I'd be playing the snake side that day but I ended up playing every side throughout the course of the day. I don't mind since it gives us a chance to find a winning formation in practice, but I wish I was better prepared. We also need to be a bit more consistent in our bunker naming.
So we played 11 games that day and lost 3, including our first game of the day. We have a nasty habit of dropping our first game. The more I watch us the more I see we're more of Philly team than an Ironmen or Tampa style. We don't sit, but we don't ram it down every one's throat every point. We're somewhere in the middle.
For the most part I was happy with our practice today. We learned a few valuable elements. #1: Johnny needs a gag so he can't talk when he's dead. #2 We need to eat before breakfast and make room for a lunch somewhere during the day. #3 We need to stop dropping our first game in order to build momentum.
This was only the 4th time we have really come together as a team in the short time. We became a team April 25th. We then didn't practice our starting line for a long time. Steve had to work on Friday nights so we couldn't practice with him. Then one practice I had beat up my knees since I wasn't wearing proper protection so I reffed. Finally we changed our practices to Sunday's, but I had to leave the country for 2 weeks for a funeral. Then we finally had a scrimmage upon my return at Spent. It was the first time we had really played together. Our first every day together was when the roster was decided, but it was still 5 walk-ons playing for themselves but in the same group. This time we went out as a team. And boy did we go out. We did not win a single point that day save for the last game.
Game 1: Rob is hit off break taking the snake. I fill the snake and crawl up a bit and a ball hits the cake 2 feet in front of me and makes a 90 degree turn into my goggles. I literally saw that ball hit the bunker and bounce into my goggles. We lost the snake side so we were overrun. Game #2: They came at us hard and we had no answer for them. I think that game was like 20 seconds long. We were all really embarrassed. At one point I questioned whether we belonged on that field. Game #3: They came at us again, but we held them off a little longer. Games 4-?: We lost, plain and simple. Final Game: I decided to play the dorito side since our team wanted to go snake strong. This was a 7vs7 game on a 5 man field. I was backed up by Tony, the commissioner of the NXL, while everyone else hit the snake side. I can only tell you what happened from my zone. Nothing happened! I hit the 35 off break and made my way up the doritos slowly. Only the dorito corner, Steve, was putting any pressure on me, and he was putting a lot of pressure on me. His balls were centimeters off my bunker so I couldn't even head check that often. I'd have to look in and let him wrap on the snake them so that I could pop out again. Some confusion happened on the snake side. I think both sides tried run throughs that left both sides with only a back line and me by myself in the 50 dorito. I had no clue, but I was working my way forward. At some point Steve got taken out, probably by the snake, but it could have been me. We really don't know for sure. With no pressure left I stormed through the doritos and took out the back line with the help of my team. I think we needed that win. We came off that field with a high. We had finally beat the people who had pounded us all day. I think if we lost that game then it would've dropped the team's spirits to an all time low.
The next week we decided to scrimmage at Medley (thank you Medley for the discount) since we couldn't get in contact with the owner of Spent because he was on his honeymoon. In this instance Max was playing back since Steve was sick at home. Max has only been playing for a few months. He's definitely come far, but he's got a long road to go. We all agreed that this practice wasn't about winning. We talked about it and it was about getting out of our individual paintball tactics and starting to work as a team. I think when we all agreed sincerely to do that is when we actually won that first game.
We went out and played against Miami Hotshots. I had played against them in the past as a walk-on so I really wanted to face them as a team. I know they're good, but I don't respect that they play as a team against walk-ons a lot of times. There really isn't anything that can be learned by doing that. Rob's fingers were still injured from when he took a bad dive into the snake at Spent so I was playing snake this game. I always worry I'm not fast enough, but I try not to think about that when I'm running up the field. This was the Chicago layout. We'd watched Hotshots breakout against another team and we felt confident that we could out-match them. Their snake player kept getting pinned down at the snake side dorito so he could never fill the snake. We knew then they were snake side weak. So we tried to capitalize.
Game #1: Johnny got us ready. What he said was simple and what we needed to hear. I had been saying all day. Learn your bunker codes, work on communication, ignore the thought of winning. Just work as a team, but when we got on the field and were standing at the deadbox he had us bring it all in and repeated everything a quiet sincerity that was relieving. I think a lot of the pressure we had put on ourselves went away when he said that. We broke with me going to the medium temple off break with a goal of hitting the snake early. Rob hitting the pillars behind me, Max laning off break (I forgot where, I think doritos), Johnny taking the back stand up can, and Elier taking the dorito medium temple off break. I ran to my bunker watching paint fly in, but I made it safely. Got my gun up, head checked to find that there was no one on my side. Within 5 seconds I crawled into the snake. I looked in and found a player running to the X. I lived behind my gun and shot him before he could shoot me back. It was really luck. It could have been a trade had I missed the first couple of shots. Then I had the back center and small snake temple putting paint on me. I inched my way up the snake trying to battle the temple. When I head checked I saw he was looking in (a nasty habit those guys have, always breaking their own zones). So I bunkered him, but went way too far and got chewed up by their back center. So I walked off worried that now it was up to the team, but at least I took out 2 for them. I look out and see Rob rush up to fill the Medium Temple and I then see Elier past the 50 with Johnny close behind. I think Max was at the X or the dorito near it, but he was blacked out from where I was standing. Then I saw the big push that went wrong then amazing. Elier went to bunker the dorito medium temple and slipped on the dirt and was sitting outside his bunker on a knee living by his gun for like 20 seconds (it felt like forever) and miraciously he takes out their temple player. Rob then gets into the eye of the snake putting pressure on the back-center while taking pressure from the dorito back. The next thing I know the whole team including Max stormed down the field and bunkered out the last two. That's when everyone cheered for the first time, but that only pissed Hotshots off. They went to sleep on us in the first game, but they weren't going to make that mistake again.
Game #2: We broke out about the same, except I think I hit snake off break. This time they overloaded my side, and Rob was still in the pillars so he was really too far back to give me serious support. I had a snake temple, snake medium temple, and a snake corner all with guns on me. It was not looking good. I took out the medium temple, but had no idea about the snake corner. I went to move up a bit down the snake and he clipped me. Rob came filling in, but didn't know the snake corner was still in play and was chewed up. I think that snake corner killed most of us that game. Ultimately we lost, but we were still happy with taking out 2. Oh I guess I forgot to mention the dorito side kill, but it doesn't really matter when you lose. They thought that we were rubbing it in their faces when we cheered last time so they made it a point to cheer louder when they won. They didn't understand that it wasn't beating them that made us happy. We could care less who we played. It was that we actually accomplished what we set out to do and that's work as a team.
Through the course of the day we played more games mostly against Miami Defiance and NXK. We won a majority of our games, and we worked hard as a team. Really stressing communication. It paid off.
