Semiprofessional Division
With the departure of Leverage, who won their berth into the pros, and the Royal City Seadogs, who purchased a professional division franchise slot from Blastcamp, eyes were on the Semipro at Tampa Bay Open division to see who the next standout team will be in 2025.
Front runners, according to analysts included a number of solid, familiar squads like New York Wrecking Crew with Steve Dougherty at the helm, Tiki’ s Totem coming in with local“ home field” advantage, a rebranded Chicago Distortion under the new moniker of Wyldeside Distortion, and the fan favorite Shut Up We’ re Trying out of the Paintball Fit system. All of them performed up to expectations.
Wrecking Crew absolutely slaughtered their prelim bracket, winning both of their Friday sets 5-1, then coming into Saturday to defeat Brawl in a fast-paced 8-4 match. Knowing they had secured a
Sunday berth they slowed their pace a bit but sealed the deal with another 5-4 win over their local rivals, the New Jersey Jesters. Sunday, they weren’ t so lucky as they battled SUWT and took an absolute heartbreak 4-3 loss that cost them their spot in the semifinals. They would slide into fifth place for this event, but great things are ahead for this Crew.
SUTW had a solid weekend, putting up aggressive numbers on Philly Corrupt and Shock. They did enough to make Sunday, but just couldn’ t quite unlock BR Factory or Wyldeside, and in they end, they went home with a respectable fourth-place finish.
Wydleside did not disappoint. They showed dominance all weekend and continued to scrap into Sunday taking a hard-fought, one-point victory over Tiki’ s, and then scrapping to the finish against a TPP Crew. That heartbreak 5-4 loss would give them a third place overall for the event.
Photo By Matt Clayton www. paintball. media
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