Arizona Pole Position, a competitive paintball team, earns championship title

PHOENIX - You may not know that paintball is a competitive sport, but a local group of guys just won a championship.

There was so much emotion in the celebration.

The local paintball team called Arizona Pole Position are champions.

"It was really fun to take this band full of misfits and people that had never played paintball before. We all came together with one common goal and we won the whole thing," Brian Deatherage said.

Deatherage founded the team more than a year ago and in that short period of time, they’ve gone from being an underdog to the top dog of the West Coast Paintball Players League.

"I just wanted to play. I just wanted to give it a try and say that I played in the hardest paintball league that there is," Deatherage said.

Austin Smith who is a member and runs the team's YouTube channel, says, "A lot of people think of paintball as running around the forest or desert, but we're doing speedball. It’s a smaller course, 5 on 5, very fast-paced, very strategic, a very physical and aggressive sport."

The team works hard and everyone is required to attend practice two times a week.

"We have such a good family bond and atmosphere about the game. We put in a lot more work than other teams. It’s all paid off," Kyle Kerr said.

You may not know that paintball is a competitive sport, but a local group of guys just won a championship. The local paintball team called Arizona Pole Position are champions, and there was so much emotion in the celebration.

"It’s a thinking person’s sport, you gotta slow down and think about what’s happening," Rodney Smith said.

Now that the team is back home from their win in California, they proudly display their hardware and plan to keep getting better.

For more information on the team, you can go here: https://www.youtube.com/@austinslays