A national championship in an athletic event is rarely overlooked.

But many students are unaware that Eastern’s paintball team brought home the championship trophy this past spring.

Eastern defeated Kansas State two games to one in the finals of the Class AA National Collegiate Paintball Association Championship in April.

It was the first year of existence for Eastern’s paintball club.

Conrad Gary, the club’s vice president, explained the method by which competitive paintball is played.

“We play a different style,” Gary said. “It’s tournament paintball. It’s not like running around in the woods, which is more of a war style . it’s more competitive.”

Gary said the style is usually played in an open field with blow-up air bumpers.

“It’s a faster style of play. It’s a small field and you play for points,” Gary said. “That’s how it is scored throughout the tournament, and that’s how wins are determined.”

Gary also explained tournament play.

“We play in different tournaments in different colleges throughout the entire United States,” Gary said. “Our big rivals are some of the in-state schools, like Illinois State and U of I. They are two of our big rivals.”

Gary and club president Josh Norman are in charge of dealing mostly with team organization, while captain August Figliulo handles coaching and practicing with the team.

“(Josh and I) check with the NCPA to get the dates of the tournaments, how much they’re going to cost and so forth, while August helps schedule practice and deals more with coaching and improving the team,” Gary said.

The team is self-funded. Tournaments, equipment and travel are all paid for completely out-of-pocket.

Because competitive paintball is not recognized by the NCAA, Eastern cannot fund the team.

“We pay $30 for a case of 2,000 paintballs,” Figliulo said. “It’s nothing for us to go through two cases per game . and that’s not including driving to and from the tournaments.”

The club captain also spoke about the structure of the league.

“Much like other college sports, (paintball) has two divisions: A and AA. AA is the ‘everybody can play (event),'” Figliulo said. “There are events all over the country. You can play any event, at any time, as long as you’ve got five guys.”

Figliulo said that A play is invite-only. Eastern played AA last year.

Eastern received a bid from the NCPA president during the middle of the season to compete in A competition.

“That is the first time that has happened. Not only (that it happened) in the middle of the season, but in (the team’s) first season,” Figliulo said.

Eastern went on to compete in the national tournament in both A and AA divisions. The tournaments were held in Texas.

Figliulo talked about the physical and mental challenges faced by his team.

“Some teams roster 20 players; we went down with 10,” Figliulo said. “So not only are we running short-handed with short funding, (but) we’re playing three 30-minute matches in a single game.”

Between games, players are allowed a two-minute break to reload and clean off their equipment before they are required to be back on the field for play.

Figliulo said while they were in Texas, the heat was in the 90s for the entire trip. He said days lasted from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the team played all day.

Eastern was ousted in the A tournament by eventual champion University of Connecticut before competing in the AA tournament later that weekend.

They came away with the national championship.

All of the players from last season’s championship squad will return this season.

They will compete in their first tournament of the season Sept. 29 at Illinois State University.

Figliulo is confident about going into the team’s second season and said he feels his squad is primed for another run at the national title.

“This year, our aim is the A and AA conference title and nationals,” Figliulo said. “Last year, it was ambitious to think we would win these tournaments, and we did. This year, we will have more structured practices, more structured scheduling and we will win.” “This year, we plan to do much bigger things,” Figliulo said.