Rockin' Cocks Take 1st at MAPL

When news had reached RC Army that The MAPL would be holding a pump division at their next event, and that the event would be held at OXCC (the same field PSP MAO was at), we knew it would be a worthwhile venture. Having missed PSP Chicago, and previously

deciding to pass on the PSP West Coast Open, we were all eager to get back on our grind and protect our east coast turf. 
The 2 weeks leading up to the MAPL Star-Spangled Open RC practiced hard at Pev’s Paintball. The weather both weekends was on the hotter side, low- to mid-90s, and most of the team was drinking close to a bottle of water in between games. The weekend before was particularly rough, PigPen, Moneyshot, Left Ear, and friend of the team Christian were all out on Friday setting up the PSP Chicago layout (also the layout for MAPL) and running some drills. Come Sunday, RC was there in force, almost being able to run 5-man pump games (although we did 3-man because that was the format for MAPL). Ben Swanson was able to make an appearance, and we also had some new players, Haden and Brey Sawyer, and Liam. Despite running our A-team line (Nengi, PigPen, Moneyshot, and Left Ear) against our B-team line, the A-team line seemed to struggle with communication and taking the right shots when we had them, and ultimately lost most of the games. The day ended with a mixed opinion of how we would do at the tournament, although Chrispy’s remark that “sometimes you need a beatdown the weekend before an event” seemed to foreshadow the outcome for the weekend to follow.
Come tournament day, Left Ear and Moneyshot made the 2-hour trek the morning of meeting Nengi, PigPen, and Chrispy at the field around 7 am. Left Ear and Chrispy were sporting some of the freshest G.I. Sports t-shirt swag, but unfortunately the paint of the day happened to be Valken Redemption (although it shot very well considering the weather). Speaking of the weather, it was much cooler than the previous practice conditions (mid-70s or so) and was cloudy with a chance of rain. The team checked in, bought our paint, and proceeded to prep for the possibility of rain. The MAPL ran a race-to 2 for the pump division, totaling 4 teams. The names were all familiar, being teams we had faced at PSP MAO. CP Factory, no surprise since OXCC is their home field; SubZero, again no surprise being that they are based in Maryland; and Subzero 2, having former RC Rev member Craig on their roster. Our first game was scheduled to start around 9:12, and our starters consisted of Left Ear, Nengi, and PigPen. The first point against CP Factory we broke out to Nengi D-side Temple, Left Ear to snake insert, and PigPen to Snake Temple. Left Ear made the quick bump into the S2, and put some paint onto the D2, but as revealed in a video later on, missed an easy kill on the center Aztec. Left Ear and PigPen were caught both looking D side, allowing the CP Factory snake player to bunker Left Ear. PigPen’s field awareness came into play and he was able to take out the CP player, and manage to stay alive. PigPen and Nengi were able to win the point. 

While alternating between Left Ear on the snake side, and Moneyshot on the Dorito side, the team was able to blaze through the pre-lims (although there were a few close points) and ended up going into the semi-finals 4-0, undefeated, not losing a single point. We were in the number 1 seed, and played SubZero 2 in the semi-finals. We came out on top 2-0 and moved on to the finals against CP Factory. Our breakout for this match was different from our previous ones. We sent PigPen to the Right wing off the break as opposed to snake tower. This proved beneficial early on as PigPen held down the snake side, but was clipped when he went to check the D side. This left Left Ear and Nengi across field from each other. Lack of communication left Nengi to get bunkered and the Left Ear to get pinched out, losing our first point over 9 hours into the day. Moneyshot was put in and the team was able to win the next point, making it 1-1. The next, and final point of the tournament for the pump division. Nengi to snake insert, PigPen Snake temple, Moneyshot to D temple. The game went slow, the CP player slowly moving up the snake side. Eventually Moneyshot traded with the CP D side player, and the CP snake player made a move on Nengi, taking him out. PigPen made a quick turn and put a rope on the CP player, eliminating him while again staying completely clean. The last CP player, unaware that PigPen was still alive, pulled the flag and made a dash for the hang, only to be eliminated by PigPen. The nail-biting final point was over and RC had emerged victorious. 
The post-game consisted of a few high-fives and congratulations. The team took the podium, claimed our prizes and medals, and hit the road. We discovered in the upcoming weeks there was video coverage of all the games, and Nengi even scored a full page spread in PBX3 magazine.
As usual we would like to thank all our sponsors and supporters. Exalt, for numerous accessories; St!ffi, for 14”; GI Sportz, for paint and super agg stickers; Aztek Photography, for photog; CCM, for literally the best pump guns; and lastly KPS Paintball and Pev’s Paintball, for giving us a place to practice. We would also like to thank PBX3 for the media coverage, and OXCC and MAPL for a great event.

RC Take 3rd at PSP MAO 2013

 So I thought I’d write the blog for this event this time and I’ll start by saying we came into this event feeling particularly good about our chances of winning again. We had just come off of our win at PSP Dallas and we had some really solid practices leading up the event. The only issue we really had going into this event was the field layout.

Now before I go any further I wanna say this was probably the first time in the history of RC (or at least I felt) that we genuinely had a bulls eye on the back of our heads. After our win at Dallas, we had opposing teams, players and even another team’s sponsor making comments about coming to get us and beating us. Now this is pump and this is normally the “fun” division but with all this “talk” going on we felt the need to really step-up and be ready for this event. Even if that meant bringing the ranch dressing! (Yes this is directed at someone or some team in particular).

The PSP MAO layout for this year was particularly difficult in my opinion and I’ve been playing for around 13yrs. This layout on paper looked really good and when we first got a chance trying our hands on it we felt pretty confident since we were making our spots against machine gun teams and winning at that. But the d-side of this field is what troubled us the most. We figured out the cross field shots from both and it was obvious the snakeside was going to be where the action was but we struggled (in practice and at the event) to move up the d-side without allowing the snakeside to be left wide open.

Regardless of how we felt, we were ready and we got to the venue Saturday and did the normal, walk around, watch games, test paint and look over the fields. Saturday night we learned we’d be playing the Truballers in game 1 and the games following would have us battling Subzero, CP Factory and West Point Black Knights. Now this event we had Amish, Cmcd, Nengi, PigPen, Scottie Don’t, Left Ear and The Hebrew Hammer all rostered to play, however the Hammer’s other team made Sunday so he wasn’t able to play until the semis.

I mentioned previously that the first preliminary game was against the Trueballers and RC was pumped up and ready to defend their East Coast turf.  We went with an aggressive breakout to take the real estate early and try to get the good angles.  To our surprise the Trueballers also went aggressive and had two people at the xbox and A.  We shot one of the center players out, but the other one caught our guys moving up the D-side.  This left left ear in snake 3, Nengi in snake 2 and PigPen in snake corner.  The snake side battled it out with the Trueballers snake and tried to hold off the D-side, but eventually they worked their way up the D-side and shot us out. 

This loss didn’t faze us too much because we knew we were just holding to the RC tradition by losing the first game of the day.   Unfortunately CP Factory had the pleasure of matching up with us after a loss and in RC fashion we got a few K’s and started running it down on them.  They only had D1 and D-side temple left and the three-pronged snake attack pushed up and shot the last two players out. 

Our next game was against Subzero and turned out this was one of our fastest wins of the day.  We broke out with a D-side attack.  Scottie Don’t, Amish, and Cmcd lead that attack while Nengi and Pigpen held down the snake.  Well that was the plan, but Subzero’s snake crumbled and Nengi and Pigpen were up the field taking care of business.  

The next matchup was against the West Point Black Knights.  We really didn’t have too much recon on these guys coming into the event, but we knew they had a former RC Rev and from watching their first few games they liked to push the center.  We went with the snake side heavy breakout with Left Ear going into S3 off break, Nengi in S2 and Pigpen in the corner.  Like we expected they broke out to the center, but drew a penalty getting there, so we quickly capitalized and with 3:32 seconds left on the clock we hung the flag. 

This finished us up with 3-1 in the first round of the prelims and now it was time to win a game against the Trueballers and close out the rest of the teams.  The next breakout against Asylum Trueballers was more normal for both teams.  Pigpen got a K off the break, but got clipped from the D-side temple while snapping with him.   Cmcd moved quickly up to the “50-D”  and had their 50 snake pinned in.  Things looked like they were going well, but it was about to all unfold.  Nengi got shot and Amish tried filling over to the snake side temple.  He got to the temple and smoked the snake, but unfortunately he got caught on the squeegee going there and got a minor penalty.  They pulled Scottie Don’t from the D-corner and this left Cmcd all alone to get ran down by their D-side.

CP factory was next on the list and after that loss to the Trueballers I think we were down a little and we ended up loosing to CP Factory with 1 second left on the clock. Cmcd found himself in the 50 Dorito again poring paint on their 50 snake, He only had two balls left and went and ran down the D1.  I guess he missed and that player put one on Cmcd and moved down the field.  Unfortunately I am unclear what actual went down after that in the match, but we did find out the PSP now does not consider the hopper as equipment, because their D1 player who shot Cmcd left his hopper in D1 and hung the flag with 1 second left on the clock.

With two losses in the second round we knew we needed to get the train back on track, so we went out and smacked Subzero for the fastest win in the prelims and the Black Nights also fell quickly as we moved up the center of the field and finish them off.  The only matchup we had in the third round was against CP-factory.  The games were ran at a very quick pace, so we were unclear how some of the other teams were doing.  This made this third round game very important and we broke out heavy snake and finished CP-factory off.

Coming out of the prelims we were tied for 2^nd with Onslaught (aka Pump Cru) which had us playing each other to see who would play the Trueballers in the finals for 1^st. Game 1 of the semis was rough, Scottie got a penalty and a few seconds later that game was over. Game 2 we went strong sending Left Ear to S3 off the break, however again the D-side would plague us and despite Left Ear making his bunker we lost both d-side players almost simultaneously and a few minutes later Game 2 was over. RC had officially gotten 3^rd Place at PSP MAO and now is (should be) ranked 2^nd overall in the division behind the Truballers.

After the event was over we packed up, claimed our plague and medals and headed home. Regardless of how we placed we have still placed in the top 3 in 4 out of the 5 PSP events we’ve played in (2X 1^st Place, 1X 2^nd Place and this 3^rd Place finish and the only event we didn’t medal in we got 5^th after a 3 way tie for 3^rd to move on). Either way we’ll regroup, put this behind us like we do the NPPL DC events, practice harder and be ready the next time! We want to thank all the other teams that came out and of course all our sponsors/supporters (Exalt, St!ffi,  GI Sportz, Aztek Photography, CCM, KPS Paintball, Pev’s Paintball and MCarterBrown).

Rockin' Cocks Win PSP Dallas!

RC landed in Dallas with a lot to prove coming off a disappointing 2^nd Place finish at World Cup 2012. Dallas provided the first tournament for the 2013 PSP season and opportunity for RC to start the year of with a convincing win.  The Dallas team consisted of CMcD, Amish, Pigpen, Left Ear, Nenji and for the first time Jake Levy. Chrispy provided the snake side coaching with Casey Taylor, aka MoneyShot helping us out in the pits.

For Left Ear and Casey it was their first national event and they took advantage of all the vendors and sponsors in Dallas. Left Ear was able to meet Houston Heat and get all their autographs. We went through all of our normal pre-tournament rituals. We tested paint, watched the pros and divisional games, cheered on Richmond Rage and DC Devastation and got our jerseys silk screened with G.I. logos. We capped off Saturday with a trip to Olive Garden where we met Kim, our male waiter who we turned into an RC fan. Everyone headed back to the hotel and double checked, or in my case triple checked, their gear and headed to bed.

Sunday morning everyone was up and heading to the field. Our bracket consisted of 10 teams, with 5 teams in each bracket.  The top two teams from each bracket would move on to the semi-finals. RC hit the ground running from the very first point and quickly went 4-0 in the first half. The second half we made some little mistakes and were 2-2, eliminating two of our opponents. We lost our third game to Freestyle, but won our third against Protagonist to end the bracket play 3-1 overall with a 4 point margin placing us at the top of our bracket. The four teams moving on from bracket play would be RC, Asylum TrueBallers, Protagonist and Blitz.

In the semis, RC faced off against Protagonist to determine who would move on to the finals against the TrueBallers. RC carried the momentum from early in the game quickly dispatching Protagonist 2-0 and moving into the finals. In the finals we found ourselves facing the same team that beat us at World Cup which was exactly where we had wanted to be since landing in Dallas:  facing the TrueBallers for first.

The buzzer sounded and we were scrambling off to our bunkers. I really can’t remember exactly who shot who, but RC quickly shot up the TrueBallers and hung the flag for a quick point. The second game did not go as planned. The TrueBallers bounced back shooting some of us on the break and after a drawn out fight hung the flag. Pigpen, as the last player to get eliminated that game, watched the TrueBallers hang the flag and saw that the referees called a dirty hang on the TrueBallers. After some on field discussion the referees decided against the Trueballers and did not award them the point.  

We moved on to the third point with a 1-0 lead. Knowing that the TrueBallers had to score and score quickly, all of the RC team took extra paint expecting an intense battle. RC broke out five alive and so did the TrueBallers. RC was able to get the first kill quickly and put the TrueBallers on their heels. Shortly after RC scored another kill out of the snake and continued with five alive. The TrueBallers, sensing the urgency after losing two players, rallied and were able to knock out two RC guys. Pigpen shot out and traded with the TrueBallers Captain, who was not happy at all, which left Amish and Jake in D1 and snake corner to finish the game. TrueBallers made quick moves up the field grabbed the flag and were swarming around Jake in snake corner. Amish all of a sudden popped up and blasted the last two Trueballers who didn’t seem to know that Amish was still alive. With no TrueBaller left alive Amish and Jake began to celebrate while time expired giving RC 1^st Place in Dallas.

Rockin’ Cocks would like to thank all of our sponsors especially, Pev’s Paintball, KPS, G.I. Sportz, St!ffi, Exalt and Amish’s Pickles. Thanks to the Richmond Rage for cheering us on and coaching us on to our 1^st Place victory. We will see everyone at MAO where we look to defend our 2012 1^st Place finish.

Start of 2013 Update

I just wanted to pass along a beginning of the year update for everyone wondering what we’ve been doing in the off season.

2013 Schedule:

This year we are hoping to play several PSP events, the entire EPL Pump Series and any CFOA Pump events we can make. RC Rev will also be competing alongside us in the EPL Series. We will also be looking for local events to compete in throughout the year and more than likely those will be as a combined squad(s).

We will also be running/reffing/staffing the Pev’s PTS Series throughout the 2013 season.

Sponsors/Supporters:

Most of the 2012 sponsors/supporters are coming back for the 2013 season and they include…Exalt, St!ffi, Pev’s Paintball, Amish’s Pickles, CCM and MCarterBrown. We are also in the process of working on bringing on KPS Paintball and Aztek Photography to the official team list of sponsors and supporters.

If you’ve read above you’ve probably noticed a few names missing. For those of you that haven’t noticed by now, we parted ways with Sandana at the end of last year. It was a decision made by the team.  Additionally our boy Liam at “The Lifestyle Clothing” has decided to take a break from his business and focus on school. We wish Liam the best of luck as well!

All Things Pump

 Additionally, we will be working with AllThingsPump-Yourpbfriend.com (see link below). AllThingsPump is currently a Facebook based pump page that spreads information about pump events and other information that affects the pump community. They also have a web store that sells most of paintball equipment and specializes in pump equipment as well.

Aztekphotos

Rosters:

We’ve managed to keep intact most of our 2012 roster for the 2013 season. Additions include Ben Swanson and Casey Taylor who will be playing with RC Revolution this year alongside Craig Hillard and Tony Manning. Tony “Left Ear” Manning will be making the move up to the big time this year, joining the team for the PSP Dallas event!

E-Store:

With the assistance of P-Flood the team is in the process of creating an “e-store” where you will be able to buy all your RC swag. Were hoping to have the store up and running very soon! The first rounds of products will be long sleeve RC “Hurtin’ Feelings” shirts and an assortment of RC Stickers. Other products being discussed are headbands, goggle strap and of course more “Hurtin’ Feelings” t-shirts!

I think that pretty much covers everything.  Please stay tuned to our Blog/Facebook page for more updates regarding our 2013 season, practice information, tournament information and any other team information related to the team(s)!