Super 7 Masters - Event Report

 Super 7’s Masters 2011 – Event Report

Every year Australia’s premier paintball Series, The Super 7’s, is brought to a culmination by the series finale, The Masters, held at Action Paintball Games in Rouse Hill. The Masters traditionally occupies the final weekend in November and is always preceded by the State of Origin Championships on the Friday prior to the main event. The State of Origin is no joke as players from each of the Country’s states are invited to enter a team into the event to contest for the honour of becoming State of Origin Champions for the year. Regional pride runs like the Amazon through players’ veins and rivals from existing teams unite under the collective banner of a state team. Reigning champions Queensland were confident of retaining the title having stolen it from New South Wales the previous year. Alas it was not to be as NSW and Australia Capital Territory (ACT) both had other ideas and made the finals ahead of the 2010 Champions. In a gruelling final ACT, lead by Aaron “Henry” Sillis, couldn’t be usurped from their commanding lead and held on to the bitter end once again depriving New South Wales of bragging rights.

ACT - Origin 2011 Champions.

With the State of Origin still haunting some and invigorating others with confidence the 2011 Masters got underway. The energy sapping temperatures and humidity of the previous year were far from evident as the rains of the previous week greeted players upon their arrival on site as did the clay quagmire as they entered the staging area and fields. Cleats swiftly became a necessity and snorkels could have assisted many a snake player in their quest for tape supremacy. Three separate divisions, Amateur, Semi Pro and Pro, readied themselves to take their respective titles and brave the elements. Refs Inc were brought in to handle reffing duties and provided a fair and consistent platform by which players’ abilities were officiated. All of the teams present played the popular “Race to…” format governed by a variant of the Millennium Series rules, with the Amateur teams playing Race to 2, Semi-Pro teams playing Race to 3 and Pro teams playing Race to 4. Two fields, both of which featured the World Cup Asia layout, were set up and ready to receive the awaiting teams so without further ado it was time to begin the preliminaries.

The preliminary rounds were played throughout Saturday and culminated on Sunday morning. Highlights of the prelims included Explicit beating both Sydney SWAT and Hostile Intentions and the Clown Monkeys who had travelled all the way from New Zealand becoming acclimatized to their loaned Geo 2.1’s that the guys at Action Paintball provided them to save them from having to import their own markers just for the weekend. The format was governed by Millennium rules with a slight amendment to the rates of fire permitted with 13.0 balls per second being the maximum. Lanes were heavy off the break with the majority of teams struggling to break past the 30 yard line unless they were trying something special. With every team racing to reach the point limit required games were fast and furious and with sideline coaching permitted players were trying everything to out-think their opposition. The obvious assault on the snake side materialised but teams soon realised the value of taking the 50 yard bunker in the centre field and taking advantage of the ability to lock down either side of the field. Bobby Aviles achieved this to devastating effect as did Jonny Robba who was playing for X-Fighters.

The rains of Saturday morning ceased as things started to warm up in time for the afternoon, meaning that when you got soaked playing you at least dried out a little before your next soaking! Sunday however was a different matter with temperatures back to normal and the ground firming by the hour aiding players and referees alike. The standard of play remained high throughout and teams finishing off their remaining preliminary matches to see if they would finish in the top four places to earn the right to move forward and compete for either 1st vs. 2nd or 3rd vs. 4th in the finals. In The Amateur division Eclipse managed the clean sweep taking all three podium positions with Uprising B proving their worth to take the tile. In the Semi-Pro Division, Uprising A won their playoff match to take third, but the Clown Monkeys couldn’t quite secure their dream event losing to the Thundercats in the final. In the Pro Division the playoff between Explicit and the X-Fighters went down to extra time and one on ones. Bobby faced up against Jonny and a mutual elimination ensued forcing a second one on one which Explicit won to take third place. Having already won the Series by reaching the finals, SWAT were going for the double; winning the event and the Series. Hostile Intention however had other ideas and came blazing to take the match and the event.

Miss Super 7 - Top 3

Sunday night facilitated the awards ceremony, players’ party and the annual Miss Super 7’s event. Aside from the winners of the event and the series, there are several stand alone awards presented including:
Outstanding Contribution to Paintball in Australia: Skott Marden

Dream Team !

2011 Super 7 Dream Team: Neil Rappensburg (Hostile Intentions), Ben Simpson (SWAT), Karl Simpson (SWAT), Damien Enever (Hostile Intentions), Matt Frederich (Explicit), Skott Marden (SWAT), Nick Bancroft (Hostile Intentions), Johnny Robba (X-Fighters), Ringo Ng (SWAT) and Peter Adams (Apocalypse)

Player of the Year 2011 Amateur: Peter Small (Misfitz)
Player of the Year 2011 Semi-Pro: Guy Manton (Thundercats)
Player of the Year 2011 Pro: Neil Rappensburg (Hostile Intentions)

Masters Results:

Pro:
1st: Hostile Intentions - $5000.00 cash
2nd: Sydney SWAT - $2500.00 cash (Eclipse Team)
3rd: Explicit - $1000.00 cash (Eclipse Team)

Semi Pro:
1st: Thundercats - $2000.00 cash
2nd: Clown Monkeys - $1000.00 cash (Eclipse Team)
3rd: Uprising A - $500.00 cash (Eclipse Team)

Amateur:
1st: Uprising B - $500.00 Paintballshop.com voucher (Eclipse Team)
2nd: Relentless (Eclipse Team)
3rd: Misfitz (Eclipse Team)

Super 7 Series Champions - SWAT

2011 Super 7 Series Results:
Pro Champions: Sydney SWAT
Semi Pro Champions: Thundercats
Amateur Champions: Uprising B

Final thanks must go to Mike Whybrew and his team at Action Paintball for another great season finale and thankfully it’s less than a week until their next event; Operation Etha on 5th December! See you all there,

Nicky T