Sunday’ s sunny and warm weather was perfect for a day of Hyperball to decide the winners of the Southern Open. Teams of faster players took ground on the break sending players to the spectator-side snake, the fortress on the opposite tape, and up the middle to the large center fifty bunker, while slower teams had to make it on a second bump, or if they became trapped in their primaries, fight it out where they stood. Until the sun climbed higher in the sky for midday and afternoon games, players on the parking lot end of the Hyperball field started with the sun in their eyes and caught glare every time they came out of a bunker to take a peek. It didn’ t hurt to have decades of pro paintball experience, and hurt even less to have some of the Hyperball era’ s top players, when the paintballs hit bunkers that went clickety-clack on Sunday. This showed on the scoreboard as Farside, the Master Blasters Black( Ground Zero), Shocktech Factory Gunfighters( Aftershock, Image, All Americans, Ironmen, etc), the Saberwolves and the Bibb City Bad Boys wound up on top. Some were less than thrilled at the final outcome as stalemate games in the late rounds came down to body counts and tiebreakers to determine the final standings. These rules and their intelligent, rule and scoreboard-savvy play, saw the event win go to Farside, with Ground Zero and Shocktech rounding out the podium. But as much as the competitive nature of the event’ s longtime competitors was on display, it was playing old school, competitive paintball in the company of people that hadn’ t joined one-another slinging paint in years and even decades, that was the beating heart of the Southern Open and most of the players at the event are already looking for more ten-man mechanical / capped open class paintball to play. As soon as Lane announces another event, the teams will start signing up, I’ ll book a hotel room, and hopefully we can drag a few more of paintball’ s greats out to shoot it up. www. paintball. media
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