War Paint
March 9, 2004
Mud and delays didn’t stop the ISU Paintball Club from hosting its first tournament Saturday.
The ISU Open paintball tournament was delayed an hour as the field was nearly unplayable from rain received during the week.
Corn stalks were brought in and laid across the field to help soak up the water and allow players to move. Still, nearly everyone was caked with mud from the saturated playing grounds.
“[The field] was like soup,” said Pete Longobardi, senior in history. “There was standing water everywhere. The corn stalks have helped, but we [needed] more.”
Ten teams participated in the tournament, including four squads representing Iowa State. The event gave the four Cyclone teams a chance to showcase their skills, as well as their brand new paintball facility.
“This is amazing,” said Tim Rash, junior in computer engineering and club president. “It’s been three years in the making, and we’ve finally done it. We’re extremely happy.”
With their home-field advantage and multiple teams, the Cyclones were able to clean house, taking three of the top four spots.
ISU Blue and ISU Section 8 finished one-two in the tournament, and ISU Red took home a fourth-place title. Wisconsin-Platteville finished third and kept Iowa State from running the table. Minnesota State-Mankato and Nebraska-Lincoln completed the championship bracket. The 10 teams competed in a round-robin format.
The top six teams were then taken to the championship round, which was played in a single-elimination format.
Teams collected points based on their actions during the game. A team received 20 points for pulling the other team’s flag, 50 points for returning the flag to the center of the playing field, four points for each opposing player eliminated and two points for each player from their team still alive when the game ended.
Despite the delay and adverse playing conditions, Rash said he was pleased with the performance of his fellow players.
“I’m happy with my team [ISU Section 8],” he said. “I would have liked to see [ISU] Gold play better. They got down on their spirits, and that makes it hard to come back.”
As in any game, there is a certain amount of skill required to succeed in paintball. There is also a great amount of strategy needed for the game.
“[Paintball] is like a very highly evolved game of dodgeball and tag,” Rash said. “There is a lot of strategy involved, and your position on the field determines who you can see and who you can’t see and who can see you.
“You have to know where everyone is at [on the field] and know where to move next so you have the correct angle on somebody else to eliminate them.”
