Liberty University Club Sports Athletics
Flames top two lines meet in final at Kentucky Class AA event
11/15/2014 12:00:00 AM | Paintball
Only three out of the 18 paintball teams in Saturday's MSCC Class Event No. 2, hosted by the University of Kentucky, went undefeated through four preliminary rounds, and two of them came from Liberty University.
The Flames' top two lines, their Gold and Red teams, wound up winning their quarterfinal and semifinal matches to advance to the final with identical 6-0 records. The Gold team, which won last week's Class A Event No. 1 hosted by Liberty, overcame a 1-0 deficit to edge the Red squad, 2-1.
"It was good to see the Red team win that first point and come so close to winning against the top dogs," Flames Head Coach Brian Davidson said. "It shows how much everyone's learning and how well the program's actually doing."
The Gold team, composed of Christian Campbell, David Dickerson, Bobby Majuk, Aaron Thompson, and Kyeneil Tippett, swept Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Tennessee, and Purdue in preliminary action before shutting out Clemson University in the quarterfinals and Cincinnati in the semifinals.
Liberty's Red squad, featuring Chris Smith, Dan Chiaverini, Victor Cortes, Micah McLeod, and Reagan Stehman, defeated Indiana, the eventual third-place finisher, Cincinnati, which wound up fourth, Hartford, and Missouri S&T in prelims before dominating Hartford and Indiana in the playoffs to set up the showdown with the Flames' Gold team.
Liberty and Indiana, which carried two squads, were the only schools with multiple lines entered in the tournament. The Flames' third line, the Blue team, placed 13th while its fourth line, the White squad, was ninth, and its fifth line, the Black unit, came in 17th.
"We always put the highest talent on top line and it goes down from there," Davidson said. "As our newer guys keep getting better, they're going to start moving up until eventually we'll be taking first through fifth place."
In this tournament, Davidson and his assistant coaches Glenn Davidson and Noah Burns were not permitted to shout instructions or warn their players.
"Usually you can talk to your players, give them pointers, tell them where (opposing players) are," Brian Davidson said. "But in this event, there was no sideline coaching, so the players had to rely on their teammates to communicate. This really showed that they're building chemistry with their teammates and they really worked together to get this victory."
The Flames held their last practice of the semester on Sunday and won't compete again for nearly three months, in MSCC Class AA Event No. 3, Feb. 14 in Georgia.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
