April 13, 2009

Paintball club to compete in national tournament

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- On the heels of a second place finish at the recent Midwest Intercollegiate Tournament XIX, the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Paintball Club will compete at the National Collegiate Paintball Association championships in Lakeland, Fla., Friday through Sunday, April 17-19.

The Saluki team won six of eight games in the preliminary round to advance to the finals during the March 21 tournament at Sudden Impact Paintball in McLean. The Illinois State University club was host for the event. The men from SIUC claimed second place overall for the tournament, winning three out of four games in the finals. Their only loss was to an ISU team. Competitors for SIUC at the Midwest Intercollegiate Tournament XIX, all from Illinois, were:

• Carterville -- Bearet Edgarton, a senior electronic systems technologies major.

• Normal -- Patrick Conway, a senior information systems technologies major.

• Orland Park -- William Burke, a sophomore chemistry major.

• Rockford -- Daniel Polkowski, a sophomore aviation technologies major.

• Sparta -- Bradley Cox, a junior biological sciences major.

There are 55 Class AA teams on the roster for the National Collegiate Paintball Association (NCPA) tournament. That’s the division SIUC will compete in, and the team will have eight games Saturday, hoping to score enough points to advance to the quarterfinals, semi-finals and eventually the finals on Sunday. Each team can score a maximum of 100 points per battle. Last year’s Saluki team finished 15th among 47 teams.

Burke, Conway and Cox will also compete at the NCPA tourney. Joining them for SIUC there, listed by hometown with year and major, are:

Illinois

• Crete -- Thomas Wauchop, a junior aviation flight major.

• Oreana -- Andrew Bryant, a senior physiology major.

North Carolina

• Fayetteville -- Charles Unger, a junior aviation flight major.

Each team fields five players at a time. Donnie Owsley is president of the SIUC Paintball Club, one of the many club sports at the University. You can find out more about the various club sports at www.reccenter.siu.edu. Click on the sport clubs link on the left. Or, for more information about the SIUC Paintball Club, look online at http://www.siu.edu/~paintballclub/.