The two-day competition began on Saturday with the Women’s Division kicking off our tournament scheduling at Dreamhack Anaheim. It was a heated pool with some regular competitors and some returning vets. Veteran Elizabeth Panos, who had been injured the previous year, make a heated comeback, making up for lost time, giving League #3 Patricia Bauler a serious run for the money in the finals match. Mary Kimseng, another vet, came back from a long hiatus with some serious fire, amazing shots, and earned herself both her first competitive win and her first placing competitively - congrats Mary! Trish Bauler took all the competition with an amazing showing of countering and trying out some new styles of fighting, catching many fighters off-guard, and securing herself a commanding lead in many cases. Coming out on top we had Trish Bauler, followed by Liz, then Jowanna, and finally Mary coming in fourth, all with great matches!

Our second Saturday division at Dreamhack Anaheim was our Advanced Division. This was was a heavy showing of Krait Base’s Los Angeles fighters, with Irvine vet Rob Chan competing for the first time in a while, Jamar Johnson representing from Lightspeed Saber Academy, and Andre Gonzales representing from Lone Wolf. Jordan Blankenship of Krait and Rob Chan both had amazing showings, with Jordan squeezing out a win for first, while Tony Zaldua, Krait Base’s Leader, took third after being put against Jordan in the Semi-Finals. The pool was arguably one of the more heated and experienced Lightspeed veteran pools we have seen in a while and everyone brought their best to the table and fought hard, skillfully, and  adaptively.

On Sunday it was time for the cadets and novices to shine.

Jeremiah Rodriguez and Corbin Allen were the favorites to take the top spots in cadets, having taken first and second at Engage I, respectively. But there were two wild cards: first timer but classically trained Miriya Reyes and Gavin Evans, also a first timer but a little bit older and taller than the other competitors. To the surprise of many, it was actually Conner Gutierrez who took first, defeating his opponents with a series of lightning fast attacks. Jeremiah’s normally stellar defense was unable to save him this time, as the attacks were too fast and precise to fight back. Jeremiah ended up taking second place under Conner, with Corbin following after and Miriya rounding out the top 4.

We had our last tournament slot on Sunday afternoon with our Novices. This was a heavily competitive pool, our largest event for the entire tournament, and had a heavy Academy showing. The event was split into two squadrons of six, and both pools had some extremely close spreads overall, and we want to give many shout-outs to everyone’s performance and adaptation to the Novice bracket needs, and putting up with the staff who had been working and/or fighting in their own competitive events all weekend. We want to give honorable mentions to Academy’s Steve Buonaugurio and Krait’s Jose Ortiz-Miranda who tied point for point for 5th place, both in their first competitions for Lightspeed and showing they are intent on rising the ranks and learning quickly! In one box, Light Force Academy’s Bryan Lee put on an amazing show and performance in his first competition in a long time, handily controlling the ring; and in the same box was Krait’s Earlwin Famor in amazing form, earning his second bracket placing with calm, focussed intent and skillful  dissecting and countering of styles. In the other box, who pulled ahead were Academy’s Assistant Instructor Daniel Delgado with a commanding and impressive lead out of the pools, showing an amazing grasp of timing, mobility, and blade work; and Krait base’s John Lee, a relative newcomer to LSL despite having other martial arts experience who has been working extremely hard after December’s tournament to aim for the top and adapt to the system, showing an explosive fighting style. In the brackets, Bryan and Daniel had an extremely mobile match, with Krait members ending up fighting each other again in a practice-partner experienced matchup looking to change up from one another’s experience in their fighting style; with an extremely tense match between Daniel and John showing why they they’d made it to the top with a huge amount of endurance and no slowing of pace shown from both fighters!

RESULTS

CADETS

ADVANCED

WOMEN

NOVICES

HIGHLIGHTS

SPONSORS & SUPPORT
Ripper Blades
The Custom Saber Shop
Dreamhack

DIRECTORS
Cang Snow
Sean Holtzman

STAFF & OTHER HELP
Vickerz Zen
Stephanie Johnson

ACADEMY
Corbin Allen
Conner Gutierrez
Jeremiah Rodriguez
JC Marquez
Brandon Nease
Patricia Bauler
Angela Pereda
Daniel Delgado
Miriya Reyes
Gavin Evans
Rob Chan
Jamar Johnson
Elizabeth Panos
Mary Kimseng
Steven Buonaugurio
Jacob Areias
Daniel Limon
Teohua Martinez

KRAIT BASE
Tony Zaldua Jr
Sean Holtzman
William Alonzo
Jowanna Lewis
John Lee
Jordan Blankenship
Earlwin Famor
Jose Daniel Ortiz-Miranda

LIGHT FORCE
Bryan Lee

LONE WOLF BASE
Andre Gonzales