NATHAN "MACCA" MCDONNELL WELCOMES 2018 WITH WINS
Our Aussie connect, Nathan "Macca" McDonnell from Queensland, Australia, drops in with an update on all of the wins he's been racking up so far in 2018 -
"2018 is going to be one of my biggest years of paintball. I’ll be competing in the following competitions: Victorian 5s (Vic 5s), Australian Super 7s, and the Queensland NXL Series (QLD NXL). I’ll also be leading the Red Team at Tactical Wars (TAC WAR) every two months.
On the 3rd of February, I headed down to Snipers Den in Victoria to host a clinic and play Round 1 of Vic 5s with my DYE sponsored team Hard2Overcome. A lot of our normal roster couldn’t make this round due to work or family commitments, so I was able to rope in fellow DYE sponsored players Jarrahd Cosier (nVs) and Aaron McAulay (Explicit) to help fill the gaps. After arriving around 9AM, Jarrahd, Aaron and I headed to the field to host a clinic. We kicked off the clinic around 11:30AM and had 15 in attendance. After running them through some skills and drills, we split up and ran some games to finish the day off.
Sunday came around and it was game time. A total of six teams were competing for the win. The competition was strong, but our biggest threat would be South East Cartel. During the prelims they gave us a 0-3 spanking which would have us sitting in 2nd place heading into the final. However, the final didn’t disappoint. An early 2-0 lead put us in good spirits. Cartel fought back getting the next point making it 2-1. With a minute left of game time, our plan was simple: make our bunkers and don’t do anything stupid as we knew that they had to try to rush us to get the point to force us into overtime. We held our ground and walked away with the win!
The following week would see me and the NVS crew competing at Round 1 of QLD NXL. The boys all flew up Friday night and crashed at my place. We were up early on Saturday morning for an hour drive to the field. We were all pretty keen to play as Tac Ops was hosting a two day competition, not to mention it has been a very long time since Queensland has hosted anything like it.
Our first game would be against the home side, and one of the favorites, Calvert Valour. The game started out strong as both teams wanted dominance. After a few early points, we took a 4-1 win! Our second game was against Mungers. This game was over quickly as we took a quick 4-0 lead. Our third game of the day would be against one of the new teams in our division, One Life. These guys were out to try and knock us off, but we couldn’t wait to introduce them into the big league. They came out strong, but unfortunately for them, not strong enough as we won 5-1. Our final game for the day would be against BLADE and we walked away with another win making it 4-0 for Saturday.
On Sunday we faced off against Eastside Raw and Hillbillies, which ended as another twi wins making us undefeated heading into the final. After watching the last round of the prelims (we had a bye in that round), we found out we would be playing Calvert Valour in the final. Just before the final took place, Jack the Captain of Calvert asked if we would allow them to sub in another player as one of their players was suffering from heat stroke. We agreed and it was then time to get focussed on the final. The final itself was a solid battle as both teams wanted to get the win, but at the end of time we walked away as the victors!
We would like to thank our sponsors Paintball Addiction, Gladiatair and DYE Precision for all their products and support. We can’t wait to see what the 2018 season holds. I’ll be back out at Tac Ops on April 7th for Tac War. Stay tuned for more!"
- Nathan "Macca" McDonnell
*Above two photos by Hayes Photography
*Photos by Sarah Birch Photography unless otherwise noted.