Monosalvaje Win @ CCP Medellin, Colombia 2011

This past weekend, Aug 7th and 8th, Monosalvaje traveled to Medellin, Colombia to an event of the Colombian Paintball Circuit (Circuito Colombiano de Paintball).

Months before the tournament the team had decided that a change in the structure of our practices was needed in order to take us to the next level. Andres Dassum, one of the older and more experienced members of the team, stepped up as our coach and implemented a more structured, physical, and specific practice.

Studying and practicing the layout the week before the event really helped us understand what was needed to be a strong team in Medellin

The team set up practices on both weekends and weekdays and we all committed ourselves to a stricter schedule and structure. This in addition to meticulously studying and practicing the layout the week before the event really helped us understand what was needed to be a strong team in Medellin. To Medellin the team brought a very varied roster of players: Alejandro Amador, Juan Jose Moreno, Andrew Baker, Juan Bejarano and Andres Dassum were joined by Edmundo Jordan, who at 45 years old is one of the oldest and most experienced players in Ecuador, as well as Carlos Antonio Martinez and Alex Solms, two 16 year olds with incredible potential.

The tournament was held in the outskirts of Medellin, in the beautifully green countryside of Colombia. The weather was perfect, sunny all day yet with a cool breeze that ensured you were comfortable both on and off the field. The event was set up in Los Caballos Bar, a typical Colombian horse ranch of sorts where rodeos and other events are held each year (there were even ponies around that players would take pictures with). All this as well as the turf field, lighting, huge grandstands, and full service restaurant and bar literally steps away promised this was going to be an extremely fun event.

The team won its first and second match and was off to a well start

Prelim games started early Saturday morning and continued through Sunday. The team won its first and second match and was off to a well start. Fierce competition in our third and fourth matches as well as a couple of questionable penalties, we could not pull away with a win in our two remaining games.

We were not the only teams in this position, as the nature of the layout allowed for small tide-changing plays producing upsets left and right throughout the tournament. At the end of all prelim games, our decisive wins and close losses gave us the edge over all other teams enough to move on to finals.

Having studied many games on both Saturday and Sunday, we decided to slightly modify our game plan to counter the Colombian teams' tendencies in the

finals round

This paid off immensely in our semi final match as we shut down Colombian team Wild Dogs as they tried over and over to unsuccessfully break through our lines and pushed back for a 4-1 win.

Having won our semifinal, we were in the finals match against Wayout, a very aggressive Colombian team and good friends of ours for many years. We had two simple goals in mind going into the final, we had to play our game and not let them play theirs.

The Colombian team pressed on each and every point in futile attempts that only resulted in them diving head first into our paint. We capitalized on points where we were up by a couple players, and even won a couple two on ones.

Even though the match was a fierce one, our preparation and determination resulted in a 4-0 shutout, allowing us to bring the CCP Medellin Championship title, prize money and trophy back with us to Ecuador.

Monosalvaje would like to thank Planet Eclipse for its support throughout the years as well as Fast Ducks Paintball, CCP, the Duque family and all our Colombian friends for their amazing hospitality and friendship bestowed on us throughout the weekend.

Monosalvaje will be competing in various South American leagues as well as PSP World Cup this Fall, come say hi and meet the team at any event!