SIPA Season Begins!

Submitted by:  Wade Moore

The 2007 inaugural season for the Southern Illinois Paintball Association kicked off Sunday September the 16th with two matches. The weather was great for paintball and a small crowd lined up along the netting to watch their favorites play in the new format created just for this league.

Match one pitted Southern Illinois Bad Medicine against Carterville Evil Intent.  The coin toss was won by Evil Intent they chose to take the flag to be on offense, so this left Bad Medicine with the choice of which end of the field to defend.

From the onset of this match the defenses prevailed time after time keeping the score 0-0 after the 1st quarter ended. Both teams seemed to like putting two players in the "house" bunker in the middle of the field right past the end zone. Then they would send the runner up a side. This method did not work very well for either team as the runner was left on his own and usually tried to make move that ended in his elimination. The two back players were then trapped in the "house" and it was just a matter of time before they were eliminated.

Just before halftime Carterville Evil Intent broke the scoreless tie with Danny Crider eliminating the last Bad Medicine player and crossing the endzone with the flag with 10 seconds left on the play clock. Southern Illinois Bad Medicine had one more chance before halftime to even things up but continued running the same offensive plan and once again did not score.

At half time Carterville Evil Intent led Southern Illinois Bad Medicine 1-0. The teams switch ends of the field to start the second half and S.I. Bad Medicine would start with the flag. Half time is a 10 minute break for the teams to rest and make adjustments to their game plans and get ready for 30 more minutes of play. But with the start of the third period Bad Medicine came out in the exact same offensive formation and failed to even move out of their starting bunkers. Evil Intent came out aggressively and stopped Bad Medicine. Carterville Evil Intent had made their halftime adjustments and it looked like they decided to get aggressive with their play and it proved to be effective. Evil Intent went on to score two more points in the second half and win the first ever S.I.P.A. match 3-0.

In the 4th quarter S.I. Bad Medicine did make an adjustment and had a point in their grasp but it was just not to be as they were all eliminated from a last second Evil Intent push.

The Harrisburg Hitmen did the reffing and did a fine job. Josh "Cowboy" Brandon play stood out in the first half for Evil Intent and Travis "Spork" Brandon and Danny Crider Showed they could play in the second half to put the match away. For S.I. Bad Medicine, Jason 'Prime time" Morse showed some rust after a 8 year lay off in his play and 21 year veteran Jeff "Frenchie" French just never could find his game. Their third player Loren Zerkel played some good ball but with the teams inconsistency, just could not get across the goal line.

The second match of the day would pit Carterville Evil Intent Kids, their rookie squad, against the Harrisburg Hitmen, who had some experience on their side with David Morse and Carl Brasher on the roster.  David had not played competitive paintball since 1998 and Carl had not played since 2003 but they knew the game well.  For the Evil Kids team, they had lost a player the week before this event and had to scramble to replace him at the last moment. S.I. Bad Medicine would handle the reffing duties for this match.

Unfortunately for the Kids their new player could not control his emotions and in the heat of the Kids being outplayed 5-1 he demonstrated gross misconduct on the field and was ejected from playing the rest of the match. This meant the Evil Kids had to play most of the second half with just two players since that’s all they had on their roster. The HitMen slowed the game down so that the score would not reflect a blowout having a three on two advantage. For the Carterville Evil Intent Kids, their remaining two players, Kyle McCann and Nick Kelley held their own very well and played with sportsmanship.

The Match ended 9-1 in favor of the Harrisburg Hitmen. For the Hitmen, Dustin Morse, David Morse, Brad Thompson, Carl Brasher, and Bryan Thompson, all played very well and look like a team with a plan for this new format. Good reffing by Bad Medicine in the second match, and congratulations to the teams of Carterville Evil Intent and Harrisburg Hitmen who opened their season with wins. For S.I. Bad Medicine and Carterville Evil Intent Kids, let’s see if they can make adjustments and pull out wins in their second matches. The S.I.P.A continues on September 30th and the team of Marion Onslaught will make their S.I.P.A debut.

Thanks to the crowd who showed up to cheer the teams on and we will see you on the 30th at 1:30 in Carterville Illinois!