SAPPA 3 Man Pump Round 2

Sunday April 11, the Sappa 3 man round 2 was held at Skirmish SA here in South Australia. Since the end of last season Sappa has held a pump tournament to coincide with the 3 man series. The idea is we’d probably not get enough of a draw to warrant holding the tournament on a separate day, so might as well combine it with another. Admittedly, we only had 3 teams competing in the first few rounds; RC Red Star, The Reffs and Ruin. However this latest pump round not only added a new team, The Zombies, but a few players swapped into the pump teams to give the pump game a try. The wheels are turning.

This was probably the nicest morning of any paintball tournament I’ve ever attended. The reason is Sappa ran the semi tournament in the morning and the pump tournament after lunch. If you’ve ever played in a paintball tournament you know how hectic those mornings can be, “I over slept, where’s my gogs, where’s the field, my gun’s shooting hot, captains meeting already, I haven’t even walked the field, where’s the paint, we’re on first game!!!???” So rocking up to the tourney at 10 a.m. with all the time in the world to set up your gear, and watch some teams play the field was a luxury I’m not used to. The reffs let me in the nets to shoot some video of the tournament, three man Sappa is pretty laid back like that. I got some footage from Rooey’s scaffold, but then figured his field insurance didn’t cover falling of a scaffold. I don’t know how the tourney finished, but I can say Tactix and Malice were looking pretty hot.

After the semi tourney was done, everyone had lunch together. One of the perks of playing at Skirmish SA is Rooey feeds you… REALLY well. Sometimes I question the soundness of eating sausages and steaks before competing in a paintball tournament in the SA heat, but I usually get over it once you smell the barbeque. All the pump guys are present and sorting out their gear. There was quite an array of style and history that the various teams brought. For the most part The Reffs shoot snipers aka cocker pumps. Really nice autocockers converted with CCM pump kits. RC Red Star had been using a phantom and two SL68 rentals until now. Ed came through with an order of the new Azodin pumps for us to use. He put an auto trigger frame on his; I put a single trigger frame on mine. We had a third one stock for our boy Michael to use. Jas from Ruin was shooting the hottest marker in Australia, the only T2 on the continent. His teammate Rhys was shooting a sniper and Wal was shooting an Azodin with Auto trigger. The new team on the scene, The Zombies, had the most unique markers of all. Stratty was shooting a pumped mag with stick feed and a super short brass barrel. Ginge (the Ginger Ninja) was shooting a PPS Pump Nasty with loader, and Kinky was shooting an offset stick fed phantom. They weren’t used in the tourney, but there were also a couple Sheridan K2 series on the scene! Quite a display of pump guns to say the least.

Game on, each team played each other in a best of 3 rounds, round one RC Red Star vs. Ruin. Ruin has come along way since their speedball debut last season. Through a series of shouting and paint throwing it came down to a one on one; me vs. Jas. We chased each other around bunkers until we found each other in the open. I thought I shot Jas and we were waiting for him to get pulled… taking no chances I shot him in the foot just for good measure. Turns out Jas was waiting for me to get pulled as he’d hit me on the hopper. The Refs called it a draw… but in retrospect… I think that was your win Jas… sorry buddy. Game two… shouting… paint… down to a one on one… Wal vs. Wimpy. Run around… run around… snap each other out at the same time for another draw. Game 3 finally determined RC as the victor by the slimmest of margins. The entire tournament was full of this hectic game play, and often there was very little that separated the winners from the losers of each round.

Ruin continued to play competitively all day. Rhys and Wal really stepped their game up this round with both players pulling 1 v 2’s. Jas led the team from the back, but never hesitated to take some real estate. The Reffs played tight as always. Gaz stepped to the side to allow Kael to get some gun time, you look good with a pump gun buddy, and I’ll get to work on that documentary. Troy is always aggressive on the field and Brett, I’ve looked at the footage a number of times and still can’t figure out how you seem to be able to shoot anyone on the field from anywhere on the field… even if it did bounce of my head. This was the first speedball tourney for the Zombies, and I’m not exaggerating when I say you guys did an excellent job. The difference in your level of communication and style of playing your bunkers was drastically different from the beginning of the day and the end. I think you’ll find yourselves much more comfortable once you switch a player or two over to open class pump. Michael aka Wagon joined RC Red Star as our boy Simon aka Funky was away for the round. Excellent job clicking with the team, looking at the footage I’m pretty sure there’s at least one game where you got all 3 k’s. And excellent job communicating in the middle Ed, I don’t think there was a moment where I didn’t know who was where etc… and the ‘check his ass, check his AAASSS’ incident was classic.

Anyhoo… after the tournament we all cleaned up the bunkers and pulled up the stakes. Hanging around a bunch of friends and popping bunkers is an example of a rare moment when work is a pleasure. When all is said and done there are the presentations. I would probably be exaggerating a little to say that the presentations are a moot point and we all just wanted to have some fun playing ball. It’s almost that laid back, but let’s not kid ourselves.

First: RC Red Star

Second: The Reffs

Third: Ruin
Fourth: Zombies

So thanks again for another great day of play boys. Let’s get some more teams out there for the next round. I think with the Zombies, Kael, Michael and a few phone calls we could easily have 6 teams next round. Thanks to you reffs, including David, who worked all day before playing. Gaz you hardly even got to throw any paint. Thanks for running the tourney. Thanks to Ed for organizing the pump love. And thanks to all the new and returning players who made my day Sunday. See you all next time.

Pump: tell a friend

Here's a link to a quick vid of the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW8O96TgeP8