Beira Mar . . . Take the GOLD !!

Team Beira-Mar at the Third Event of the Portuguese National Championships 23rd of June 2013.

Report By:  Gil Belford.

 

The third event of the federation sanctioned Portuguese National Championships took place, in Mafra, near the capital city of Lisbon.

We knew that this was going to be a pivotal event for us, coming in with a 3rd place and a 2nd place in the previous two tournaments, this third event was going to decide if we could achieve our goal of winning the series and advancing to the premier division of Portuguese paintball next year. We had a very easy first prelims match against team Relâmpagos, which are newcomers in the division, which saw us quickly and convincingly take a 3–0 lead, consistently shooting 2–3 bodies off the break. On hindsight, the fact that we had such an easy first match may have been detrimental, as it didn’t give us a good chance to play the field and prepare us for our second match which included tougher opponents.

We played Blue Falcon Squadron for our second prelims match, and it didn’t go very well. We ended up conceding that match 1–3. We immediately sat down to analyze and understand what had gone wrong, and were able to make the necessary adjustments for our third match against Metralhas Bronze, which we took 3–0, allowing us to make the finals in 2nd place in our group.

In an unexpected turn of events, our main competitors in this division had failed to make finals, which meant that our result in this event was even more important because it would allow us to take 1st place overall in the series, and gain some ground over them. We got our minds focused and ready for the finals. 

Our semi-finals game was against team Lisbon Titans, which usually play a very aggressive game, but sometimes lack in the organization department, so we used this to our advantage by employing a calm, cool and collected style of play which allowed us to take the match 3–1 and put us one step closer to victory.

Our final match was against Trolls INK, who were playing extremely well, and we knew it was going to be a tough match. We went over our scouting and strategy once more and got ready for the final game. We took the first point in a slow, controlled manner, and were looking confident for the second, but unfortunately some mistakes cost us and we allowed them to even the score back up at 1 point a piece. We played the third point but unfortunately lost some bodies early on, and decided that we were going to dig deep and let the clock run out so that we would have a fair chance at winning the match in overtime. And so we did. 

We went in for the overtime point hungry and ready to take what was ours. It was a perfectly executed and strategic point from us, which saw us take the win and finally a 1st place finish, and an extremely important one at that, that bumped us to 1st place overall in the National Championships. It felt good, it felt deserved, but most of all it felt like something that we want to do a lot more of, and we’re ready to put in the work and effort it takes to do it again.

This win couldn’t’ have been possible without the amazing support from all our sponsors, so a great big thank you goes out to you for believing in us. Thank you.

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Congratulations.... Another Win for the Emortal Army !!!