Ten balls? That's all?
Adrian shook his head. "You're nuts. They'll make cookie crumbs out of you."
Looking at the field, Cory stood silently. "OK. I'll take my chances." He finished filling his tubes, and put a last-ditch 12-gram in each pocket. A moment later, he headed for the Big Woods field.
Somewhere around 20 players on each team. No other stock players. "Leave the stocker on defense," he heard somebody say. Then, "Game on!" and Cory raced for the left tape. He headed for a major bunker, stopped, posted, and took out a running opponent.
Teammates spewed hoppers of paint past his bunker. "Move up!" one of them yelled. Cory didn't. He watched the game develop. Nowhere to go, yet.
A minute or so later he did move. Safely. Another snap shot, another opponent down. A long ball crossfield, another one out. The opponents pushed hard on the far side. Cory saw only two left holding his tape. He yelled, "Take them out now!"
Brrrrrrrrrrr! Both gone. Cory and three semi-shooters bunker hopped, fast. Cory saw the flag about the same time he heard a desperate, "Blue team, they got our flag!" from far back at his own flag station.
"Go back!" Cory ordered. They turned around, moving out, hoping for a lot of juicy back shots.
Cory pulled the flag. Alone, he headed home along the tape he'd just come up.
The other team left Cory's home base empty. Quickly he ran in, touched the flag to the flag station--and--no ref in sight! "Hey! Ref!" he yelled.
About the time a ref showed up, the other team hung on their station. "Sorry, guy," the ref said, "I didn't see you. I'll tell the other ref you hung it first."
And so the newest stock player at Rock County Paintball hung his first flag, at age 14.
It takes a special player to play stock. You need some talent and a lot of patience and self-control.
