posted Mar 30th, 2005 - The NSL-TV coverage of the SSL Valentine's Meet has been completed, it is time to move on with the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005. Round two of the DeLand meet has been uploaded and can now be viewed.

It was only the second out of ten rounds in the 2-day competition. However, the five top teams had already settled in the final rankings after the first round, and the second round only confirmed what would become the rankings after ten rounds. Only DeLand Majik and Team Fastrax were still tied in fourth place. Majik was actually already faster than Fastrax in round two but lost a point due to an infringement. Majik and Fastrax would finally break their tied positions in round four.

The surprise of the second round was DeLand Fire's performance. Ian Bob (Tail), Natasha Montgomery (Point), Shannon Pilcher (Center Inside), Gary Smith (Center Outside) and Thomas Hughes (Video and Alternate) had already surprised the observers by matching the highest score of the Golden Knights in round one and leaving Sinapsi PD, DeLand Majik and Fastrax behind.

DeLand Fire shocked the rest of the field even more with another highscore in the second round of the meet. This time, no other team tied Fire's score of 22 points. The Golden Knights had a 21 on the scoreboard, and the new DeLand team had taken the lead.

Round two was probably one of the few rounds that Golden Knights team captain had in mind when he mentioned in the interview of the NSL News on March 29: "We had some good jumps where we thought we had good scores, and Fire beat us."

The Army team completed the first Cat of Block 15 at 33.48 seconds and the second Cat at 35.61 seconds for the score of 21 points. DeLand Fire managed to complete the whole Block 15 and completed the second Cat at 34.68 seconds, well within working time and for a score of 22 points.

Both teams went neck to neck on the technical part of the jump. DeLand Fire had an average time of 2.5 seconds and the fastest move with 2.2 seconds for Block 15 (Cat - Cat), while the Golden Knights averaged 2.6 seconds and had 2.1 seconds for the best move. Fire averaged 1.3 seconds for Block 17 (Danish T - Murphy) with the best time of 1.2 seconds. The Army team was a little bit faster with an average time of 1.2 seconds and the best time of 1.1 seconds.

The random work made the small difference between the scores of these two teams. DeLand Fire was slightly faster every single time in building the Danish T of Block 17. Fire ended up with an average time of 1.25 seconds for all free transitions, while the Golden Knights spent 1.30 seconds average to build the formations. These numbers compare to Sinapsi PD's (1.40), DeLand Majik's (1.44) and Team Fastrax' (1.53) averages in round two.

The third Block 15 of this jump helped DeLand Fire's cause, as well. The Golden Knights and DeLand Fire were going exactly the same pace throughout the first two pages of round two (DeLand Fire: 17.30 seconds, Golden Knights: 17.32 seconds). The Army team lost 0.5 seconds to Fire for the Cat - Cat on the third page and could never make it up in the remaining working time. Both teams had separated by one second at the end of the third page (DeLand Fire: 24.07 seconds, Golden Knights: 25.06 seconds).

This 1-second situation was still the same when it came to the end of the working time. DeLand Fire completed the second Cat of Block 15 at 34.69 seconds, while the Golden Knights were already past the deadline (35.61 seconds).

The race for fractions of seconds between DeLand Fire and the Golden Knights in this round and the evaluation of the numbers only demonstrates early in the season what can be expected later this year. The 4-way competition is at a point where several teams will be able to win each round. Very small mistakes or flaws will make a difference. Consistency over the whole duration of the competition will become more crucial than ever before. It will be a very exciting year.

Round two of the Shamrock Showdown also offers a new case study related to a penalty situation. DeLand Majik lost one point for an infringement around Block 17 (Danish T - Murphy). Event judge Richard Schachner had a sharp eye and detected the mistake. The NSL News will follow up with the whole story later. The NSL audience can already be the judge for now and explain and discuss the penalty situation in the NSL Forum.