Yarra Classic.... 10-Man Down Under.

July 6th 2019 was the date for the second annual Yarra Classic to be held at the Action Paintball Games Yarramundi paintball park in Sydneys, north west!

The event is run using the tried and tested old school cool 10 man centre flag format from Tim Montressor of mechanical markers and electronic markers capped at 6bps semi auto (yes we know it is supposed to be 5.5bps, but a couple of the players had old Angels that would not turn down to lower than 6bps so in the interest of old is cool we upped the BPS by half a ball per second) and again, as was the case last year, the event was booked out 8 weeks in advance.

Teams were made up of players from Queensland and all over New South Wales.

Teams would play a selection of games on the newly rebuilt Trenches and Australia’s only Proper Hyperball battlefields with the finals to be played out on the Hyperball field only.

This would be the second time that the old fossil team SWAT Recon, made up by old Sydney SWAT players, some of whom had not played a paintball event in more than 20 years jumped on the field together! This would also be the second time that the team would be running the mighty Planet Eclipse EMEK mechanical paintball markers, which they had used to win the first ever Yarra Classic the previous year.

With the new Paintball Regulations that came into place on July 1st, it meant that for the first time ever in NSW we would have teams with players aged 12 – 15 as well!

The morning was very cold at only 4 degrees Celsius, but luckily the event was supplied with Fresh HK Army Premier winter formula paint which performed flawlessly. (yes, this is a shameless plug to the paint GODs at HK Army)

By the end of the Preliminary games, SWAT Recon had finished in first place undefeated and would face up against the Wicked Assassins. Interesting to note that one of the players on the Wicked Assassins was playing his first ever games of paintball as he was only 12 years of age and….. only 4 foot tall!!

The finals match on the Hyperball field turned into a real slug fest with players dropping from both sides until it was down 4 on each side.. then finally SWAT Recon old school baller Mike Whybrew was able to push down the left unnoticed and shoot three of the last four players whilst they were trying to stop Alex Orr from pushing on the right side tape. Then Alex was able to go down and shoot last remaining Wicked Assassins player, who happened to be the very same 12 year old Ethan Petersen who was playing his first ever day of paintball! The crowd watching gave young Ethan a loud cheer as he walked off the field. His Father Kris, (who had been playing next to him earlier in that game) was beaming with pride watching his son walk off the field like the champion he is!

The SWAT Recon boys have made it two Mechanical 10 man events in a row using a Planet Eclipse GMEK and 9 EMEKs. Some of their EMEKS were actual rental guns from the Action Paintball Games rental fleet! Yes Rental guns! They were nothing short of awesome to use on the day. If you want a strong reliable fast shooting mechanical marker that you can just hose out at the end of the day and know that it is going to kick ass the next day then SWAT Recon can recommend the Planet Eclipse EMEK 100.

With them SWAT RECON was unbeatable! Now the team only has to wait 30 years so young Ethan and his EMEK can join the team…

Thanks to Kristy of Korr Photography check out more pics here: https://www.facebook.com/Korr.Photography/