SUMMARY
RESULTS
Jose Ortiz-Miranda
Steve Perez
Andrew Johnson
John Mullins
Raphael Estrada
Kieran Haile
PROMOTIONS & RERATINGS
Jose Miranda-Ortiz: D
Steve Perez: +E
Krait Base in Los Angeles, CA hosted the first SoCal tournament of the 2022 year, kicking off a season of getting back into more regular events with a solid showing from all fighters.
Throughout the event the energy was high, fighters had amazing performances, and the effort of all fighters were evident, with a whole lot of amazing attacks coming from everyone out of nowhere, throwing everyone watching into cheers.
Coming out on top of the pools gunning for the top was Steve Perez of Penguin Saber Academy in his first Lightspeed competition, with a highly mobile style with amazing accuracy on hand picks, controlled and fast strikes, and great distance management. Jose, backed with experience and lots of top placements, found a major challenge to overcome with Steve, who he had fought with previously in another league under different rules, still showing a great performance, and adapting well in fights he didn’t expect to have challenges in. Andrew Johnson came third in pools, a new competitor from Lightspeed Saber Irvine with an athletic style and previous sports background showed up and his distance control and determination and quick style adaptation really did him well in his first performance.
Not to be outdone, John Mullins, Raphael Estrada, and Kieran Haile all pulled out the stops, John dominating positionally and making everyone work hard for every point earned, Raphael with some extremely aggressive lunging and near sliding putting his opponents off-guard and jumping up and back trying to avoid his strikes, and Kieran with some amazing change-ups and picks that made his opponents all need to carefully plan how they went in on him.
In the Semi-Final brackets we saw a close match between Steve and John, Steve adjusting to John’s height and style to take the match. Jose fought with Andrew all over the box back and forth as they lunged and fled back and forth constantly barely missing each other until Jose got the upper hand with a few shots well earned. Once the Semi’s were done, we saw John and Andrew fight for third - both knew each other’s styles, with Andrew’s mobility taking the victory. Finally, we saw Steve and Jose square off for the top spots, and Steve wasn’t playing around while Jose was caught completely off-guard by the effort and precision Steve showed, taking an almost blowout-lead in a series of back to back to back points that almost had Jose’s number perfectly figured out. However, Jose showed a great eye and noticed the distance and strike shifts he needed to stay out of the way of Steve’s blade, and when to best avoid Steve’s hand shots, shifting his hand away and making a herculean effort to both keep his hands away from Steve’s kill zone and get past Steve’s defense to grind his way back to take 1st place.
Jose certainly earned his top spot this tournament, and we are incredibly excited to see Steve and Andrew’s progress as they get more competitions under their belt with how well they showed in their first LSL competitions! And we look forward to seeing more great growth from the other fighters who all showed awesome amounts of growth and improvement from previous events!
SEAN HOLTZMAN
Southern California Director
DIRECTORS
Sean Holtzman
REFEREES
Tony Zaldua
Priscilla Haile
SETUP/assist
Tony Zaldua
Dinah Kolasa
John Mullins
MEDIA
Dinah Kolasa
John Mullins
COMPILATION
Dinah Kolasa
COMPETITORS
Jose Miranda-Ortiz (KB)
Kieran Haile (KB)
Raphael Estrada (KB)
Andrew Johnson(LSI)
John Mullins (LSI)
Steve Perez (Penguin Saber Academy)