posted Feb 6th, 2018 - The 2018 season of the Indoor Cloud League started almost exactly the same way on the 12+ leaderboard as Hurricane Factory and Paraclete XP showed off on the 14+ leaderboard. The NSL News had reported on 4 February 2018 that the two ICL 14+ teams tied their totals for the first six sequences of the 2018 season.

The two 12+ teams in Northern California finished their own six sequences with a 1-point difference (102 - 101).

The iFLY Sacramento team had their January event on the 11th and started with 101 points. The iFLY SF Bay team followed up a week later and outscored the regional rival with a total of 102 points.

The iFLY SF Bay team had the stronger performance for the three technical sequences (AAA - AA - A: 55 - 49), while the 4-way rookies posted the higher scores for iFLY Sacramento (RRR - RR - R: 52 - 47). The only point deduction between the two teams in the AAA Class kept the two top teams from being tied on the 12+ leaderboard, as well. iFLY Orlando could not deliver a score for the R Class sequence, which could have added enough additional points to take the January top spot.

iFLY Sacramento - January	AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Teams	B,14,L,5	B,14,11	B,L,9	A,G,K	M,B,L	M,B	Total
Jason Russell, Steven Walker, Matt Stephens, Lori Connor	16(-1)	13	-	-	-	-	29
Ron Ashcraft, John Verley, Lisa Larkin, Calli Waltrip (ErrSpeed)	-	16	20	-	-	-	20
Ron Ashcraft, Lauren Brown, Russ Hebert, Steven Walker	-	-	18	-	-	-	-
Reed Lawson, Ryan Kihm, Keith Clayton, Steven Walker	-	-	-	14	-	-	14
McKenzie Brown, Sona Santos-Linsenbach, Matt Stephens, Lori Connor	-	-	-	-	14	24	38
iFLY Sacramento's Best of January	16	13	20	14	14	24	101

NCSL Director Lori Connor reported an interesting situation in the internal AAA competition at SF Bay. Cali4ornia Raptors and Gangnam (Mike Deglau, Christina Deglau, Volker Haag, Jim Hopf) were tied with 18 points, and Lori Connor used the tie-breaking rules to determine who would be on the 12+ leaderboard for iFLY SF Bay.

Cali4ornia Raptors completed their 18th point 24/100ths of a second faster than Gangnam team and won the AAA Class honors. Gangnam countered with the AA Class sequence and won the internal Open Class competition (AAA - AA) by one point. Lori Connor said that the competition between SF Bay team 4Tune team and Sacramento team ErrSpeed was interesting, as well. Both teams also compete with and against each other in the same category at the World Tunnel League meets in Northern California.

Both teams posted 20-pointers at the two different locations for the A Class sequence in January. 4Tune won this internal NCSL duel across the two ICL teams with the higher score for the AA Class sequence. Lori Connor is looking forward to seeing more of these internal duels this year and hopes that the teams will push each other to higher scores that way.

The iFLY Sacramento team won the Indoor Cloud League 2017 on the 12+ leaderboard over iFLY SF Bay, and the Sacramento team had posted nine of the twelve monthly winning totals. Lori Connor also pointed out that the annual total of 1430 points in 2017 was the second highest behind the Hurricane Factory with 1529 points and three points higher than Paraclete XP's total on the 14+ leaderboard.

iFLY SF Bay - January	AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Teams	B,14,L,5	B,14,11	B,L,9	A,G,K	M,B,L	M,B	Total
Mike Deglau, Christina Deglau, Volker Haag, Jim Hopf (Gangnam)	18	17	-	-	-	-	17
Deanna Frank, Julius Frank, Ethan DeLano, Jessica Lee (Cali4ornia Raptors)	18	16	-	-	-	-	18
Lukasz Weber, Sylvain Florand, Vignesh Elamvazhuthi, Deanna Frank (4tune)	-	12	20	-	-	-	20
Ron Put, Achal Asawa, Michael Stevens, Julius Frank	-	-	-	10	-	-	10
Mika Miettinen, Alan Snyder, Laura Reed, Michael Beaudreau	-	-	-	-	17	20	37
iFLY SF Bay's Best of January	18	17	20	10	17	20	102

She also brought back to the attention of her participants that two important changes occurred in the ICL rules for 2018: "First, Block 21 became part of the 12+ A Class dive pool late in 2017. The introduction of this block will be challenging for A Class teams but it's also an exciting change. Up until 2018, the only A Class blocks flown in the 12+ tunnels were 6, 7 and 9. The extra block will be just as challenging for the A Class teams to learn as were the longer random formations G,K,L when they were added to the 12+ dive pool for the Rookie Class categories a few years back."

"The most significant change though came in January 2018. The R/RR scores will be capped at 25 on the leaderboard totals. Higher scores than 25 will display on the leaderboard but will not become part of the monthly total. Looking back at just the 12+ 2017 ICL leaderboard, the Sacramento team posted higher than 25 points for R/RR sequences on ten different occasions, totaling 82 points (ranging from 26 to 49 points). SF Bay posted higher than 25 in the same categories on only two occasions for a total of 11 points."

“The change was discussed at the ICL leadership level, and the main purpose of the change was to solidify the purpose of those lower categories, which represent an introduction to 4-way at the grass roots level and promote and learn 4-way. It also levels the playing field in an effort to promote and maintain interest in 4-way between the Rookie Class participants.”

"It's quite the interesting change though, because without Sacramento's 82-point lead produced by its higher than 25-point R/RR scores, the totals in 2017 between the Sacramento and SF Bay teams would have been a much closer spread. It's going to be interesting how this change plays out in 2018..."