Playoffs
The Ochos revealed the disparity in the brackets by sorting the wheat from the chaff. Impact made easy business of Distortion in a 6-0 win, and Red Legion easily defeated Heat 8-2. But for all of the surprise that the Ochos lacked, the quarterfinals definitely made up the difference.
Red Legion exploited the weakened roster of Damage, and came away with a slow-rolled 6-3 win to end Tampa’ s weekend. But the remainder of the quarterfinals matches were wrought with intensity.
The matchup between Paintball Fit and the TonTons was one of sheer grit. Hugo Verhaeghe of the TonTons was the relentless anchor of his team. While Cyrus Garringer, John Chavez, and Jacob Johnson shifted pressure in the middle field, Hugo held the wall. Each match in which Fit was able to eliminate him out of the center, they took the win. But when Hugo stood his ground behind the massive structure, TonTons would answer back. The back-and-forth match went to extra time, and in the end the TonTons edged out Fit 5-4. This was
the first time in two seasons that PBFit did not make it into the semis or better.
The quarterfinal match between Dynasty and Impact came all the way down to the final seconds with Dynasty making a three-man run through. Dynasty nearly made it to the buzzer, but the dive by Ryan Greenspan wasn’ t quite fast enough and he hit the button after time expired. This gave Impact a 4-3 win and also opened an interesting discussion about a direct mechanical system that would tie the clock system with the buzzer activation. X-Factor would then walk into a rematch with Uprising with a chip on their shoulder, but still unable to find an answer for Nate Schroeder and Graham Arnold combination. Uprising upset San Antonio again in another 7-5 win.
The Semifinals saw the meeting of the top two teams overall Impact and Legion. In yet another high-paced battle, Legion ran the point tally up on Impact and made them work for their 8-6 win. Although the weekend did not turn out the way Legion had hoped, it seems that they understood the assignment on point differentials. They ran a massive 86 points, averaging 12.28 per match, a performance that is setting a new standard for the Pro division.
Photo by Weronika Wrona Krzemińska- Połeć
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