Paintball hits the mark in playoffs

By Margo Consul

The men's paintball team competed in their final tournament of the school year last weekend, grabbing a second place finish after inconsistency plagued the team throughout the season.

Santa Clara sent two teams to the Nor-Cal Paintball Series tournament in Vacaville, Calif.

"It actually went a lot better than the rest of the season," said team member Alex Mulcahy, commenting on the A-team's performance.

The A-team snuck into second place, while the B-team struggled, finishing last.

However, Mulcahy illustrates that the A and B teams must be seen as a collective whole as opposed to two separate entities.

"(The B-team) got last, but that's okay because it's more about the team," said Mulcahy.

The team participated in four events during the year and experienced a range of different finishes.

During the NCPS tournament, the three-man team finished second overall.

The second event was a college event in Los Angeles. This time, Santa Clara had two five-man teams competing and both finished last, showing the variability of possible results.

The next NCPS tournament was in the Bay Area and Santa Clara's three-man team placed fifth out of 13 teams and the five-man team finished fifth out of six teams.

"The teams we put together for previous tournaments, they didn't fit together," Mulcahy said. "Paintball is about the team so if you don't have a team working together or practicing together then it's not going to work. I think this time we got a solid group that really worked as a team and that's how you win in paintball."

After a less than impressive regular season the team came out strong and was satisfied with their finish.

"The best thing was getting the practices in," Mulcahy said. "Previously in the season we didn't get too many practices in. We definitely practiced a lot for this one and we were just fired up and ready to actually get a win since we hadn't been performing well earlier in the season."

Santa Clara went up against six teams and had to win best out of three to be victorious. The closest match came when the Broncos took on the SVP Edge squad.

The referees called the third game a tie so the teams had to compete in a fourth round, where Santa Clara ultimately ended up losing.

The B-team finished last, but the A-team was just as proud of the B-team's finish as their own.

"It's a drastic improvement that these freshmen could even improve so much in a single year to be able to give a good account on the field, despite the school work and other social disruptions," said team President Ian Ghows.

Both Ghows and Mulcahy agree that the win was a team effort from everyone involved.

"When one team was playing, the other would be filling up loaders with paint and making sure that there would be paint ready to bring onto the field. Everyone did their bit to make sure both teams could be ready to play at a moment's notice," Ghows said.

Mulcahy agrees that individual play will not bring the positive finishes they are searching for.

"Everyone has to play their part; its definitely a team game. There's pretty much no Kobe Bryant at our level," Mulcahy said.

Contact Margo Consul at mconsul@scu.edu or (408) 551-1918.