WCPS E5 Coverage (By Max Winderbaum)

I rolled over and groaned. Light poured in all around me, and there were no covers to pull over my eyes. I sat upright, and through my sleep-filled eyes realized I was in my car at CDR Park in Oak Harbor, Washington. I glanced at my watch - it was seven thirty. I was playing paintball for the first time since PSP Phoenix, and in an open division tournament at that.

I got out of my 'wimpmobile', a fuel-efficient bubble of a car, and glanced around. The parking lot was already chock full of players milling about, securing valuable table real estate and gassing up their markers. I was to guest for DBSpaintball.com, a team of hungry guys who practiced with DBS and lived for the win above all else. Teammates Justin Manao and Dale Todd waved at me from across the parking lot, and I trundled over to the staging area they had picked out.

The captains meeting was at eight thirty, and I was selected to represent the team. I glanced around at the rest of the teams. Some teams, such as CDR and Swagger, I knew from intense battles back in the day. Others I had only heard of a few times. We stood in our little semicircle and shared a common sentiment: it was early and we were tired.

The refs, on the other hand, were lively and excited to be there. They breezed through the rules of the event without a hitch, one crazy guy asked a question about a scenario that could only happen every 1000 years ("So if I get hit in the pack and a ref tells me to get out, but I don't hear them and instead run to grab the flag and get shot again immediately after touching the flag, do we still get the pull?"), and we walked off to start the games.

Prelims were interesting to say the least. We lost almost immediately to DBS Titans, our rookie counterpart in the tournament, but won many other games along the way. In the course of prelims we managed to beat every team but CDR and Swagger, the two other teams in our division. With one more game to play, all three teams in the open division sat with three losses.

Our final game of prelims was, of course, a rematch against DBS Titans. We summed up our energy and barely managed to scrape out a win in a hard fought but friendly game. As all teams arrived at the scoreboard at the end of prelims, we started to realize just how close it was going to be: only two of the three teams would enter finals. The cards fell in our favor this time, with DBSPaintball.com and Swagger making the cut; team CDR was only three points behind.

Finals were exciting to say the least. All three games lasted for what seemed like forever, with both teams taking ground off the break and using their gun skills to prevent movement. DBSPaintball.com won the first game after slowly whittling down Swagger, and the opposite happened in the second game. Tied at 1-1, a tiebreaker was required. The final game was typical of two teams of similar skill: it went to time with nearly all players on each team alive. When the dust settled, four players remained on Swagger, while five remained on DBSPaintball.com.

Overall, the event was run extremely well, with quick games, an enthusiastic reffing crew, and a great bunch of teams in attendance. In the award ceremony DBSPaintball.com and DBS Titans took the honors for the Open and Rookie divisions. Below I've listed the placements for the tournament.

Open Division
1st Place- DBSpaintball.com
2nd Place- Seattle Swagger
3rd Place- CDR

Rookie Division
1st Place- DBS Titans
2nd Place- PLAYA H8RZ
3rd Place- Code Blue

Beginner Division
1st Place- H8R Kidz
2nd Place- Code Blue
3rd Place- STK