FAU Paintball Team Crowned 2015 NCPA Class-A Division Champions
First major tournament victory in club history
Joe Kruempel (No. 00) makes a run to the next paintball bunker in front of him. Photo courtesy of Rick Applegarth
May 1, 2015
Throughout this season, the FAU paintball team worked hard day in and day out to achieve one end goal in mind — bring home a national championship.
On Sunday, April 19, the dream became a reality.The Owls competed in (and won) the 2015 National Collegiate Paintball Association Class-A National Championship for the first time in club history. The event, held this year from April 17-19 in Lakeland, Florida, is one of the two biggest national events in collegiate paintball.
The club, which was founded by students in 2008, has slowly crept to where they are today. They previously reached as high as fourth place at the NCPA Nationals, as well as having three second-place finishes at the Paintball Sports Promotions World Cup from 2011-2013.
“When I first joined, we generally ranged anywhere from third or fourth,” said senior Joe Kruempel, vice president and captain of the team. “We have had some big upsets since I’ve been on the team.”
The Owls competed against seven colleges during the three-day tournament series: Northeastern University, Cal State University, Kennesaw State University, NC State, Liberty University, University of Central Florida and Texas A&M University.
FAU competed in the Class-A division, which is the highest class to play in the NCPA paintball tournaments. Only certain colleges may compete after they secure a bid in the previous season. Class-AA is the lesser of the two, where any college can compete in regional and national tournaments.
“We definitely felt confident going into it this time,” said Kruempel. “We picked up some new players this past year and we knew that we definitely had a strong squad. We were confident, but we also didn’t want to go in too cocky.”
As confident as they were, the Owls struggled the first round of the preliminaries and quickly fell behind. The team won their first match against the Northeastern University Huskies 7-1, but lost the remaining two of the day to Cal State University (5-6) and Kennesaw State University (3-9).
“[We] had some issues on Friday with organizing,” said Kruempel. “But I’d say we completely turned it around by Saturday and Sunday.”
The following day, they redeemed themselves by gaining back-to-back wins against NC State (8-4) and Liberty University (10-3).
Quite possibly the biggest threat was the University of Central Florida, who was the defending champion of the NCPA tournament. The Owls went against the Knights in the semi-final round on Saturday.
It was supposed to be a close matchup, but an 11-2 victory solidified their position in the competition and made them a frontrunner for the No. 1 spot.
Photo courtesy of Rick Applegarth
“None of our semi [final] matches were hard. We actually did really good,” said Kruempel. “ By the final match, we were confident we could win the whole thing.”
Sure enough, the final match against Texas A&M wasn’t enough to put the Owls behind. They finished with a final score of 8-4, giving them another win and the NCPA title.
Most of the players on the 12-member team play for divisional teams during the summer, going on to play events in Nashville and Chicago. Some others will be refereeing matches, but as far as the college season goes, the team’s done for the year.
The event was broadcasted nationwide via online webcast on ncapaintball.com. It will also be aired via tape delay on May 16 at noon on CBS Sports network.
