Last Saturday, May 14th, Lone Wolf Base hosted the second event in the Duel in the Den Series, Episode II. The tournament brought in three seasoned competitive veterans; an Irvine “Knight”, John Mullins (Rank E), a Los Angeles “Krait Dragon”, William Alonzo (Rank C), and an Escondido “Lone Wolf” Dustin Speratos (Unranked). They met with three fresh-faced newcomers, Liam Hayakawa and Garrison Demazeliere, from Lone Wolf Base and the fifteen year-old Logan de Guzman, who trained out of Phoenix Saber Academy, who is completely new to the Lightspeed scene.
In the pools and semi-finals, we once again saw one-minute and forty-five second rounds, to eight points, making the matches a slightly faster paced fighting scene. Speratos’ last tournament appearance was almost a year ago, the last time Lone Wolf hosted, at Summer Slash V. Shaking off the cobwebs and determined to earn his first rank, he found a lot of resistance with this group. He earned a very decisive win against C-ranker, Alonzo, nine to five. However, this was his only win of the evening.
Being the highest-ranked fencer, Alonzo was one of the “favored-to-win”. However, with so many new faces, this also meant many new challenges. His signature anime-inspired moveset was quickly dismantled by Mullins and Speratos. His other three fights were extremely close, with eight to seven spreads. However, only one of those was in his favor, as he only managed to close a win against Demazeliere.
Hayakawa has not been practicing for most of the past year, yet he felt that this was the time to dip his feet into the competitive light saber scene! Younger brother to Hikaru, the exalted “Defender of the Den”, from Episode I and Summer Slash V, Liam found himself with some big shoes to fill. With a close win versus Alonzo and a commanding defensive closeout versus teammate, Speratos, Hayakawa had an amazing start. However, he was immediately met with some adversity, after losing to Mullins eight to two and Demazeliere, seven-two. However, with Alonzo and Speratos at only one win each, Hayakawa just barely slides into the top four!
Coming off of a win from a heavy-grade tournament the weekend before, Cadet de Guzman was in the hot seat for his Lightspeed debut. Although he is very new to these rules, de Guzman showed a lot of skill and kept up with all of his opponents, including having the most defensive-bonus strikes coming out of the pools! De Guzman exited the pools with three wins, and showed that at fifteen-years old, he was not to be underestimated!
Demazeliere also came out of the pools with 3 wins. If Alonzo took a lot of his style from anime, then Demazeliere would be drawing most of his style from fighting games. His up-tempo, unorthodox stances and seemingly random combat style kept many of his opponents at a distance. Giving himself the advantage of being “the wildcard”, he beat out both of his teammates and the Cadet, but had some struggles with the ranked fencers in play. Due to some of his point spreads, he was able to land out of the pools at number two.
Coming off his second place win at Lone Wolf’s first Duel in the Den, Mullins was looking for the BIG win. We all knew that he meant business when he cleared all five of his pool matches with commanding leads; eight-four, nine-six, eight-six and two of The Wolves with a staggering eight-two. Mullins was looking to be the “Big Bad”, seeding as the dominating first seed into the brackets.
With the top four established, the eliminating rounds were still a minute-forty-five, to eight points, but now set to best-of-three rounds, which allows any underdog to come back strong! The first up was Mullins versus Hayakawa. After getting taken down with great ease, two to eight, Hayakawa really had to work to make sure and get in on Mullins’ long reach. The first round was well fought, however Mullins crushed Hayakawa, nine-six.
After a brief “coaching break”, they swapped sides and continued on a very back and forth round two. The exchanges lead us to a seven-all match in the last few seconds, but Hayakawa brought it in and took round two, just barely, at eight-seven. In round 3, it looked as though it could be anyone’s game. A lot of the exchanges were extremely close, however Hayakawa seemed to have a completely different strategy at bypassing Mullins’ range. At four-all, Hayakawa allowed Mullins to make the first move and countered with two back-to-back hookshots to Mullins’ hands, closing out the third round, eight to four and with an incredible upset, found a way into the finals.
Demazeliere and de Guzman couldn’t be any different of fighters. Demazeliere, the hip-hop-dance-battle fighter, de Guzman, the methodical two-hander. However, with the “power restriction rules” a little more relaxed in the brackets, they were both able to have a great rematch. In round one, Demazeliere did not look to want to take it to the time limit again. In similar fashion to their pool match, Demazeliere dominated the round and closed it out eight to four.
Coming back into round two, de Guzman had a few seconds to get some outside coaching from his dad. With both fighters increasing some intensity, the second round progressed slightly slower. However, whatever advice de Guzman’s father had for him in the coaching corner seemed to have paid off, because he turned everything around and, looking to follow in Hayakawa’s footsteps with the reverse sweep, took round two, with a massive three-point defensive bonus, nine-six.
With both fighters gathering themselves, we came to round three. Although both fighters seemed to be on their game with evasions and clean strikes, only one would be able to face Hayakawa in the finals. Demazeliere was able to take the lead, and he held on strong. De Guzman pulled out a few new moves, but to no avail. Demazeliere clutched onto that lead and took it to the finals, closing out eight to four.
With two Wolves in the finals, we entered into a very uncertain finale. Both ranked fighters, who were highly favored to win, were eliminated. The stage was set, the Wolves were ready. Demazeliere versus Hayakawa in a best-of-three, first to ten, two-minute rounds, battle!
With both fencers knowing that they cannot pull out too many tricky moves against their teammate, there were a lot of simultaneous maneuvers and some ranged stalling, finding ways to get past each other’s defenses. Once Hayakawa pulled ahead, he stayed on the defensive and took the round to time, winning nine to five.
Not to be left in the dust, Demazeliere did not want to fall into the same defensive trap as last time, and attempted to goad Hayakawa into over committing. This round remained fairly slow as both competitors did not want to be put behind in points. Going tit-for-tat, they again went the full two-minutes, with Hayakawa attempting a last minute score, but did not land in time, leaving Demazeliere out on top, just barely, seven-six.
With the final round of the evening and both competitors leaving it up to anyone’s game, we see Demazeliere come out hot, much more committed and landing amazing lunges. Only seconds into round three we see Demazeliere in a very commanding lead at five to one. Making it seem like he was on the warpath, and about to close this out by outspeeding “the Younger”, Hayakawa pulls out the big-guns with a incredibly close-to-call parry-riposte, and landing three points, keeping him in the game, at four to five. Demazeliere, still believing he can land quick “hand snipes” at the encounter start, gets completely deflected, yet again, and just like that, Hayakawa takes the lead, seven to five.
With the whole crowd hyped on the back-to-back defensive actions, the referees reminding the fighters that the fight is to ten points and the commentators completely on the edges of their seat, Demazeliere attempts a third lounge to the hand of Hayakawa, only to be foiled a third time, and just like that, his lead was quickly dismantled. In a very surprising “Cinderella Story”; a clutch, back-to-back-to-back, nine-point defensive star is born. Liam Hayakawa takes round three and is Duel in the Den: Episode II’s winner!
I want to thank everyone who competed for this start of a great Lightspeed series. It’s definitely a drive for some of you, however we really enjoy hosting these things and really love having you all out here. A big thank you to the Hayakawa family for helping staff this event. Thank you Dustin for being on staff for the first week.
A big thank you to Lightspeed Saber League and Cang Snow for making all of this possible, and bringing us the World’s Fastest Light-Based Saber Fencing!I have sent out a Satisfaction Survey, of sorts, to all of the competitors via email, please take your time, but I really want this series to be a staple in the SoCal LSL events. We need your feedback to help us make it better!
M.T.F.B.W.Y.A.
Andre “Moose” Gonzalez
Cpt. Lone Wolf Base
