Fall League Finals

Last weekend we played the finals, week eight of the Syracuse fall laser tag league. The Mood Killers went into the night as the third ranked team, but anything can happen in finals.

I haven't written much about the league as there has been so much going on the last few weeks. So, let me start with a brief recap.

Our original Mood Killers line-up was Tom, Peanut, Jared, Max and me. However, Tom got a job that necessitated him dropping out of the league, so Block stepped in to replace him after the second week. We were playing against Cody's team (CWI), Beanz's team (Boneless Jungle Hams), Fox and Wookie's team (EAS) and Christine, Evol and Zac's team (TBD).

Our team had some ups and downs and for the first five weeks I don't think we had the same player line-up any two weeks in a row! Due to my tag travels that were planned ahead of time we knew I would need to have a sub step in for me on a couple of weekends. Thanks to Lenny, Block and our "rookie" sub (who I heard was pulling 7K games the week I was in Florida!) for stepping in when needed.

We played three team standard games until the end when it went to two team play for finals. Although my team had a rather lukewarm start in the beginning and had to work to make up some ground, there was steady improvement and on the last night of regular play we had pulled nearly a clean streak of wins (five out of six games, but there was a bit of a "technicality" question and a pack issue when we took second in that particular game). Overall I would say that this was a really good experience playing with people I don't often get to tag with (as most of them play SM5 almost exclusively). We had to play hard, but there was a reasonable balance for the most part. And it was enjoyable to have a regularly planned schedule where you knew there would be decent competition and a full slate of players showing up on a particular day and time (which is not always the case in Syracuse).

The night of finals began with the Jungle Hams against TBD and the Hams took the win that game. Then the Mood Killers were up against the second place team, EAS. We figured this was going to be close, but possible. We were leading for most of that game, but a couple of well timed nukes at the end by Wookie pushed them over in the last minute. So that meant we would play TBD (and we won, which put them in fifth place) then after CWI beat the Jungle Hams we were up against them and won again (putting them into fourth place). By that time CWI beat EAS and that meant we would go up against them again. After having success the previous week I tried to be optimistic and this also ended up being a close game, but not close enough. We came in third and they went up against CWI. CWI took first and EAS took second...ironically this was the EXACT order that we went into finals!

At the end awards were given for a myriad of random things. Only one cash award would be given to any individual player, so in some cases a runner-up took the honor, but results included the following:

Sportsmanship: Axman

Most Improved: Kiana

MVP: Beanz

And since Beanz had the highest game scores this award went down the line to Cody. Now, it's at this point that things got interesting because although Team TBD had taken a fifth place finish, their team took all of the remaining awards because among their line-up they had the entire span of highs and lows covered! What are the odds of this scenario happening, all on the same team?

Highest Average: Zac

Lowest Average: Sadistic Queen

Highest Accuracy Game: Evol

Lowest Accuracy Game: Lil Bit

Highest Overall Accuracy: Pony Boy

Lowest Game: Killer Panda

But that's exactly what happened, so congrats to everyone. Particular thanks to Beanz for organizing it all, which is no small task. I really enjoy having local competitive tag and am hopeful that this is part of a resurgence in tag interest in Syracuse that will lead to continued opportunities for leagues and tournaments locally. So when do we start the next league guys? :)

Comments or Questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com