First PSP Experience

August 16-19

Coming in to this event, our team was extremely confident. We had practiced our brand of paintball. We went against decent teams in our area and we found weaknesses in our strategy and worked on it. I personally started running long distance two months before the event to boost my stamina and I event incorporated drills that improved my physical capabilities when it comes to paintball. I worked on snapping, switching hands,shooting weak hand, kneeling, shooting while moving, etc.

The day started like any other event we went to. We woke up a couple hours before our first match would start.  We got to the Ab Brown Sports Complex and set up our gear at the spot we had chosen. Everything was pretty much routine as we went on our day prior to our first match. Unfortunately for us, we were not prepared for the format in which the matches were being held.

A couple months back, we were under the impression that it would be like AFPL: we would be matched against one team, play until the match point, and then move on to the next scheduled match. Nothing in the PSP site said anything otherwise. We were inexperienced so we were not aware that there was a different way of doing things in this event.

At 11am, our first match started. Almost immediately, we broke down. The refs were telling us that we needed to get on the field asap or we would start with what we had on the field. Two of the 1st string players were not ready all the way. So, since I was prepared, I went out. We started with 5, but not the 5 we planned to start with. It was a massacre. We could not even move past the first bump. So we shook it off and expected to come back in for the next point. We didn't. Apparently, they were doing a round robin format. Teams would play for the first point and go up against the teams they were scheduled to go up against, the only thing was that they were not playing til they get match point. This caught us off guard.
Had we known this was going to happen, we would have had our pit coach look at every team one by one and asses their strategy so we can counter them and/or fix our own shortcomings on the spot. Unfortunately, it was not that simple. We did not even know who was playing and we had to get our hands on the schedule that the announcers had to keep up with what was going on. By that time, we had already lost a couple matches and morale was down.

That's another thing that we were frustrated about: no announcements. We were so used to the loud announcements hat AFPL was doing that we were somewhat lost when it came to PSP. All we would hear most o the time were refs telling us we needed to go.

We were horribly unprepared for the competition. They were getting up the snake in less than 20 seconds while we were working on getting into it still. They were highly aggressive while we were reduced to defensive plays. We played it too safe. As a team, we were slower than every other team. Our lack of physical fitness showed. Among the 8 of us, only Jeremy and I were able to keep up as far as speed was concerned. Our second string team was also a disappointment. Granted, I was part of that team, but our main snake guy was not moving up. By the time we switched up, it was too late. I understand that he's 11, but we trained for this and he was not doing what he needed to do. He failed to get into the snake every time he played.

We also did not communicate well. Although in hindsight, we were getting eliminated so fast that we were not given to opportunity to actually communicate G counts or R counts. As I said earlier, we were massacred. Or as Cindy described it: a bloodbath. It showed how unprepared we were for the PSP event.
Lessons learned would be that we need to have better physical readiness. We were too slow and too complacent with our current physical standing. We should start running as a team and working on more agility drills. Our snake side has to move faster, get up the snake in record time all the time, every time. We have to dominate the snake side no matter what. We need to adjust to the way the matches are held. We need to get there when our division starts and not when our first match starts. We need to observe the teams that play before us and create a strategy based off of what we see. This isn't AFPL.

One other weakness we need to work on (and it's a personal weakness I also have to work on) is communication. We got complacent because we performed well in AFPL. That's a small pond compared to PSP. We need to play more aggressively and not get stuck in one place and get pinched.

All in all, our team is good in many ways. We were, however, incredibly horrible in PSP. I can't stress enough how unprepared we were. We should have drilled harder. We should have tried to dominate the snake. I can't blame it on the event since the event has been done that way for so long and it was not just a sudden change. We should have done more research. I can only blame it on how me were complacent.
I'm done.

-X-

AFPL Chaos Ball #3

July 7, 2013

Prior to the event, we were told that IE Unseen dropped out of the event so we were bumped up from third place to second place. Which was good news. We just have to place well in the tournament consistently.
I will not delve into detail as far as each match went. I'm just going to outline what I noticed as weaknesses that we needed to work on.

The first thing I noticed is that 2nd string main snake guy was not moving up fast enough. In all honesty, if we failed to lane out the opposing team's snake, then we would have been dominated in all of our games.

Luckily, though I don't want to take all the credit, I was positioned at the 30 can bunker so I would always take out their snake as they come into it or as they move up. So we contained their snake side pretty well. But in the end, it just evened things out and we had to rely on our dorito side. Jeremy and Sammy were powerful players so I didn't have to worry too much.

Our second problem was that we, as 2nd string, were not talking as much as we should have. Though we succeeded in winning a lot of our games, I still could not shake the idea that the only voice we relied on was the sideline coach's. In the end, we were strong enough to overcome that shortcoming.

My personal weakness was that I was not moving away from the 30 can. I was there just making sure that the snake was covered. I was ignoring the dorito side all day long. Though we were never really dominated on that side, I probably would have better served my team if I had moved to the center 50 after I took out their main snake player. I have to keep in mind that I have to move up when we are up in bodies.

All in all, our team performed well enough to place third again. I wanted first place but we were pitted against Str8shooters and lost. We won our one on one games to place third. So we are known as the one on one specialists.
Things to work on: communication, training our 2nd string snake to move up faster, taking more ground when we are up in numbers.

I'm done.

-X-