By Damon Lowney
Daily Titan Asst. Sports Editor

The CSUF blue team scrambles to shoot as paintball shots are fired in their direction on Saturday at the NCPA Tournament. Photo Courtesy Karen Woodruff.

It was 8 a.m. and Cal State Fullerton’s paintball club was warming up with their guns before hosting and participating in the year’s first National Collegiate Paintball Association Tournament, the biggest collegiate paintball tournament on the West Coast to date.

Excitement was in the air at the CSUF paintball team’s tent as roughly 20 students suited up, donned their masks and calibrated their guns to the rules-stipulated settings.

The compressed-air tanks attached to the backs of their guns must only blast enough air to propel the paint balls at safe velocities.

Although the team is a young one – it was started only two years ago – they have proven to be competitive. The only two West Coast teams to attend nationals were Cal State Long Beach and CSUF.

CSULB snatched second place and CSUF “took third place in nationals out of 54 teams,” said CSUF player Jason Thach.

Many people might know paintball as a sport or game played in various environments with different geographical features, but the sport played by professionals and colleges usually takes place on a field with a turf or grass surface.

At this tournament, the arena was set in a barren field and surrounded by black netting used to protect spectators from stray paintballs.

The field is covered with soft, air-filled bunkers for players to use as cover.

Teams start each round from two barrels placed on each side of the field.

When the referee yells, “Go!” players dash to the nearest bunker trying to avoid whizzing paintballs.

Each game is capped at five minutes, but rounds rarely last that long.

“This is college center flag; there are points for each man alive; there are points for each man killed,” said Randy Lay, an assistant at the event.

If the flag in the middle is captured – called a flag-pull – teams get points, and they get even more if the flag is placed on the opposing team’s barrel.

“We have a good chance (of winning),” said Michael Wilson, a CSUF sophomore, a few rounds into the tournament. “Our teams have good players. Our players are smart.”

Throughout each round they played, the Titans were shouting to communicate with each other, an integral part of succeeding in paintball while other teams that didn’t communicate, friendly and opposing player positions, didn’t fare so well.

Teamwork is the hardest aspect of paintball, and it takes a while to learn, said Kent Marume, a freshman playing on the veteran CSUF blue team.

Good paintball teams have players who are able to read each other’s moves.

Marume said that if you have two good players on a team, it doesn’t mean anything if the team doesn’t work together as a whole.

The competition was intense, and the points separating the top teams were few by the time teams were playing the last rounds leading to the semifinals.

A member of the CSUF paintball team attempts to get a good shot at his opponents at Action Star Games in Bloomington, Calif.

During the last set of preliminary rounds, there were no more than 15 points separating the CSUF blue team and the CSULB gold team, both were battling it out to make the bottom slot in the finals.

“I’ve never seen a tournament this close where things change point-by-point,” said Jacob Davalos, a player on the CSUF blue team.

The CSULB gold team ended up with 518 points by the end of the preliminary rounds, with the CSUF blue team coming up short with 514 points.

The CSUF orange team made it to the finals but lost to Cal Poly Pomona in its last round, placing fourth in the tournament.

CSUF’s three teams – the veteran blue team, the orange team and the new white team – scored plenty of points and placed well in the competition.

The orange team made it the furthest at fourth place out of 11 teams while the blue team placed fifth and the white team placed seventh.

“It’s the first tournament of the season,” Marume said. “We have a fairly new group of guys,” he said, but the general consensus among the CSUF teams was that they did well for only having one practice with the whole team.

Yvonne Truong, captain of the CSUF white team, said that considering the lack of practice with a whole team, placing seventh was OK.

In addition, the white team made improvements in its communication skills.

Marume felt that the blue team didn’t do enough “laning” at the start of each round, which is when players fire between bunkers called lanes before the opposing team has a chance to run from the starting barrel to the protection of the nearest bunker.

On the bright side, he said that his team had some good games and he “shot three or four guys (during) a couple games.”

Jeramie Costales, a player for the CSUF orange team, said he felt that his team had good teamwork, but to make it further than fourth place the players would have to work on communicating with each other.

“This sport doesn’t compare to anything,” said Kerrigan Colwell, CSUF’s coach. It’s the camaraderie that sets the sport apart from others. You have to cover your teammates’ backs, he added.

“What I like about paintball is the kids who make up the sport,” said Karen Woodruff, ASG’s owner. It teaches the players camaraderie and teaches them how to move toward a shared goal. “(The sport) can bring out the best in them,” she said.