Victory with the Hoops

Thursday night the Salt City Hoops hosted a fundraiser tournament at the local Laserforce Center and it was a really enjoyable event that raised money in support of their youth basketball program. Six teams participated in multiple rounds of Team Supercharge competition and our team was on our game all night. I was proud to be the top scorer in the majority of rounds as our team was 6-0 going into the finals.

All six teams played a semi-final round to determine the top three teams moving forward. However, from there the final round had each of those three teams going against each other in one last game. I remember thinking as I walked out of the arena that I knew I had done well, but I was not 100 percent sure of the result. Sometimes I know for certain how a game has gone before I even see the scores, but everyone played well and this time I was really interested to see how things had turned out. I looked up at the board and smiled... Team Four (that was us) had won. :)

That meant we got to play one more game to determine the grand champion. All the players on my team went in for a free for all against each other. Top player was the grand champion of the event. And let me say, kudos to some tough competition in this round! Mickey and Grace especially were definitely gunning for me in particular this round. It was awesome to play with them all night and against them in this final challenge. In the end...

I pulled the top score and they awarded me as grand champion and I was given two trophies. One for being on the winning team and the other for winning the free for all. This is actually my first tag hardware. :)

I must say, considering the way the last couple of weeks have gone, it felt good to be affirmed for my laser tag skills. I feel like in a way I skipped over an important step in my tag journey. I think most people probably play some public tag and if they like it they start to get into small local events like this one and then move on to more serious competitions and mini-geddons before being ready to play against the best at something like Armageddon. I totally skipped that local level step. I went straight from playing casually at my home centers to "let's play an Armageddon" with nothing in between. I'm backing up now and enjoying the results of smaller social tag competitions like this one and my last tournament in Canada. Even in the league my team is going up against players who are preparing for Nats. I've been at an advanced intermediate level banging my head against the walls of the serious competition and just being happy to keep up. But tonight, I got to celebrate playing well and just enjoying everything about it. And it was cool to know that by being there I was also supporting a great cause because there were lots of young athletes there who are excelling in their chosen sport and I was glad to be part of something that will benefit their program. And when all was said and done I got to take a fun photo with the Salt City Hoops players.