posted Apr 29th, 2018 - The outdoor season is about to begin everywhere in the northern part of the hemisphere, while the first major outdoor competition, the Shamrock Showdown 2018, was completed more than a month ago.

Several teams who visited DeLand in March went back to indoor competition after launching the 2018 outdoor season, and one of the eight teams is actually at the beginning of the winter season. The Shamrock Showdown was the last competition of the outdoor season for the Adventure Flyers who are from Paraguay in the southern hemisphere of South America.

Leonardo Calvete (Inside Center), Daniel Flecha (Outside Center), Marcelo Kegler (Tail), Belen Varela (Point) and Brad Trinidad (Video) attended their first Shamrock Showdown in 2017 and finished with a 7.3 average at their first competition. The Adventure Flyers never even looked at the other categories and started to train and compete right away in only category for 4-way seniors at the FAI/IPC world meets and world cups.

Next they signed up for the USPA Nationals 2017 where they competed in the AAA/Advanced Class as the only international guest team and improved their meet average to 9.2 in Perris.

Shamrock Showdown 2018			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		B,J,17,20		M,10,O,3		Q,22,2		A,D,P,F,16		N,12,14		15,9,C		K,4,G,E		21,1,13		7,6,11		H,5,19		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	28	-1	26		24		34	-1	21		29	-2	31		20	-1	23		28		264	26.4
2	SDC Rhythm XP	US	27		23		23		33	-1	18		27		29		20		23		25		248	24.8
3	Aerodyne Realfly	FR	27		24	-1	21	-1	28	-4	17		28		31	-1	19		23		27		245	24.5
4	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	FR	26	-1	23		21	-1	33	-1	15	-2	26		27		19		22		23	-1	235	23.5
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	25		23		22		29	-2	17		25		26	-2	18		21		23		229	22.9
6	FL Defiance	US	16		14	-1	8	-4	15	-3	12		16		16	-1	13		15	-1	15		140	14.0
7	SCZ ZEUS	US	12		12	-2	12		12	-1	9	-1	12		13		11		11		10	-1	114	11.4
8	Adventure Flyers	PY	11		11		9		14		9		11		10	-1	6	-1	9		10		100	10.0

They were back in DeLand for the next Shamrock Showdown in March this year, and the 10-average benchmark was the big goal after the 9.2 average in September last year.

The Adventure Flyers were well on track to reach the goal after the six rounds of the first day (10.8) and had a serious setback with the 6-pointer in Round 8. However, they carried the 10.0 average over the finish line after a tough second day of the 10-round meet and celebrated the exact 10.0 average after Round 10.

SCZ ZEUS may have helped the Paraguy team to reach the 10-average goal, as Amer Kassas' team from Skydive City in Zephyrhills was a consistent target, despite an opposite approach to 4-way competition.

The Shamrock Showdown 2018 was only the second outdoor meet for Amer Kassas in the AAA Class. SCZ ZEUS started in the Rookie Class of 2013 and was done with the A Class at the end of the 2015 season. Two years in the AA Class (2016 - 2017) prepared him for the next step into the AAA Class, first at indoor events of the World Tunnel League last winter, followed by the NSL Outdoor Championship 2017.

SCZ ZEUS at the Shamrock Showdown was almost identical with the one at the NSL Championship in December 2017, where Arizona Airspeed member Ari Perelman was player-coaching the lineup with Erica Gorski, James Hall and Amer Kassas.

Sally Craig-Hathaway replaced Ari Perelman in the Outside Center slot in DeLand, as Arizona Airspeed was competing at the same event.

SCZ ZEUS had also competed in the AAA Class with a completely different indoor lineup at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2018. Jimmy Xu and Ian Pedowitz, Amer Kassas' two team mates in Raeford, were also not available at the Shamrock Showdown, as they competed with FL Defiance.

However, Erica Gorski and James Hall were back with SCZ ZEUS and Amer Kassas in DeLand, and Sally Craig-Hathaway knew all team members well from several FSL Tunnel Kickers and Indoor Cloud League events.

The ZEUS lineup in DeLand could not beat the 12.4 average of the NSL Championship 2017, while the competition with the Adventure Flyers provided great AAA Class outdoor competition experience for Erica Gorski and Amer Kassas. The Adventure Flyers will now compete for Paraguay at the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia, while SCZ ZEUS has to get beyond Arizona Airspeed before competing for the U.S. delegation...