Semi Pro
The Semipro division is a crowded field this season with 35 teams having entered over three events thus far, and 25 entering into this event. But one team came into the Midwest Open dominating the field: Blastcamp. Taking first position in Tampa and Dover respectively, Blast camp seemed untouchable coming into Joyce Park, and rumblings of a run that would rival what Paintball Fit accomplished in 2023 had begun. But an upset was on the horizon that no one saw coming.
Coming out of the prelims, five teams were performing above the rest of the field: Blastcamp, Preferred Mob, and the Newbies went undefeated out of their brackets; and New York Wrecking Crew and Ikonic each lost only a single respective 2-1 battle against their top bracket rivals.
New Jersey Jesters, Rejects, and the young New Jersey Filthy showed signs of cohesion and explosiveness, but lacked the consistency to make it deep into Sunday.
Oregon Ikonic, Legacy Factory, and Las Vegas Shock beat the crap out of one another in Bracket E. Legacy came out of the prelims tied, but the head-to-head 5-0 win by Legacy ended Shock’ s weekend. And Ikonic dominated Legacy in their matchup 6-1 and came out ahead of the field Shock and earned the berth in the quarterfinals. There, they ran into a team on fire in New York Wrecking Crew and fought a grinding match that would see the Crew move on after a 3-2, overtime push.
The quarterfinal surprise came from Legacy Factory defeating a less-disciplined Preferred Mob 5-3 to win a semi-finals berth. But their weekend would be brought to an end by the slow, dominant pressure of the Noobies.
But the most talked about Semipro match of the weekend came on the other side of the semifinals where a red hot, Wrecking Crew met the event favorite Blastcamp. Despite all of the expectation, fluid play, and unbreakable chemistry that Blastcamp showed through the weekend, they were met with raw violence.
Photo by Nicholas Shaw
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