Florida Pure Energy Series Season Finale

The season finale of the inaugural Florida 5-man Pure Energy series was held on August 24th at John Gross's Florida Paintball Center in Largo, Fl. The Florida Paintball Center occupies a couple of storefronts in a small commercial plaza with 4 fields and a staging area located in back.
Three fields were in use for the tournament; a hyperball field, a speedball field and PMI's Piranha 5-man Airball field. All the fields had grass playing surfaces and the field dimensions and designs promoted fast paced, in your face games for the most part.
24 teams in Rookie, Novice and Am divisions proved to be a smaller than average turnout but the late summer heat takes its toll and as the season finale series ranking and prizes were also on the line with only those teams that had previously qualified in the race for the series title. That did mean that even with fewer teams the cream of the crop from over the course of the season was present.
Once again the supervisory staff from PMI (Joey, Ryan and Pat) kept games running smoothly while Bob Byers, event promoter, and his helpers, kept a regularly updated scoreboard by computer inside FPC's registration area making for a good excuse to enjoy a minute or two in the air-conditioning now and again. Reffing for the series was provided by Static and Static AKA and the guys have a well deserved rep as quality refs. This particular day they may not have been up to their usual standard but even so there were only a handful of disputed calls that resulted in delays as things got sorted out. Air fills were fast with no waiting has been the rule throughout the series. Series paint has, of course, been RP Scheer and while the quality has been up and down this event saw good consistency across the available grades.
Despite the almost constant threat of rain the games were never delayed and there was only a few sprinkles around midday. The accumulated series points from the five previous events served only to qualify teams for a chance at the series prizes which were awarded on the basis of how the teams finished in this event. In effect, there were double prizes on the line for the teams that qualified. A six game prelim opened the action. Those results thinned the lists for a semi-final round which reduced the teams to a final four in each category. The semis and finals were round robin with high score at the end taking the win. There was some confusion among the teams during the day as to exactly how the teams were to progress and what form the later rounds would take but that may have been due to poor communication as last minute changes weren't the norm at other series events.
All the Am division teams had qualified for series prizes so it was strictly the best of the best competing. The top two qualifiers going in were Union and Voodoo Black. Union, made up mostly of former Nemesis players, also had Mike Carthy from Strange Pro on their roster. In addition, the Icon squad was a mixed group of Icon and Strange B players with Andy Green from Strange Pro playing as well. All day the Am division games were hard fought but round after round the boys from Union proved to be too much. In the last game of the finals Voodoo Black played Union with first place on the line but Union had the lead going in and held it for the victory and series title.
In the Novice division the lead shifted back and forth all day long. Going in the strongest teams looked to be Doc's Raiders, Voodoo Green and RnT Allstars. Coming out of the prelims Green and RnT led the pack with a solid showing from Orbital Reign. The semis mixed things up again making for a pressure packed finals with the title and the series up for grabs. In the finals the teams seemed to back off a bit, unwilling to risk a critical mistake, and uncharacteristically games mostly went to time. Voodoo Green got the only hang of the finals along with two pulls and wrapped up the event and the series title.
There were some excellent match-ups in the Rookie division with a lot of exciting games but in the end, as it has been all season long, Doc's Raiders Black was too much for the other teams as they cruised to the victory and the series title.
The awards ceremony was pretty low key as many of the teams that had failed to advance had already packed up and left in order to get out of the heat and avoid the impending storms. The trophies and prizes more than made up for the thin crowd. Bob announced the event winners first, followed by the series awards, which were all first class. So too the prizes with lots of guns and air systems going to the top competitors.
Over the course of the season 69 teams competed at various PE Series events and locations around the state of Florida. Bob and the folks at PMI are to be congratulated for delivering well organized, reasonably priced, competitive events to a wide spectrum of teams. For its first go round the series was amazingly trouble free and I'm looking forward to what next year's Pure Energy series will bring.

Rookie Finals

Doc's Black 296
Apocalypse 15
Log Cabin 105
Blizzard 171

Novice Finals

Voodoo Green 157
RNT Allstars 66
Doc's Raiders 57
Orbital Reign 57

Amateur Finals

Union 226

Voodoo Black 97
Icon 63
Nemesis 74