McCandless man wins Top Gun, other honors at national laser tag championship in Ross
The 29th annual Laser Storm National Laser Tag Championship was held July 25-27 at Laser Storm Pittsburgh in Ross.
In addition to Pennsylvania, 43 players from Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Ohio and Utah participated.
Laser Storm, which opened in 1996, has hosted the championship six times, previously in 1999, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2020, said Matt Mator, operations manager.
The tournament consisted of top gun, double round robin and double elimination.
Nick “Ninja Master” Price of McCandless was this year’s Top Gun winner. The contest is an individual performance-based competition where only the top half of the players move on to the next round. It ends with a one-on-one to determine the winner.
Among player-voted awards, Price also earned MVP and sportsmanship honors. It was the first time he had won any of those titles and honors.
“I was kind of surprised to win them,” he said.
Price, 24, began playing laser tag at Laser Storm when he was 13. He has been playing competitively since 2018 and participated in the championship at Laser Storm in 2020, in Ohio in 2021, Minnesota in 2023 and Butler in 2024; he missed 2022 in Utah.
“It was the best tournament I’ve ever played,” he said. “The competition was really good.”
The Double Round Robin enables teams to learn the arena and plan their game strategies. Team rankings are used for seeding the Double Elimination contest.
The team placements, in order from first to eighth place, were Tempest, with players from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Utah and Colorado; Legion, from Pittsburgh; Mild Threat, with players from Pittsburgh and Ohio; Price’s team, Dead Man DO Talk, with players from Pennsylvania and Utah; Collective Punishment, from Ohio; Iron Curtain, from Pennsylvania; Goose!, from Pennsylvania; and Evolution, with players from Nebraska, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Awards given from the Round Robin were for most hits went to Mike Wagner of Pennsylvania, with 373 hits; least hits taken to Kyle Coffey of Utah, 42 hits; best shooting accuracy to Tristan Quast of Pennsylvania, 12.47%; and most bases to Matt Mator of Pennsylvania, 20 bases.
Championship titles went to Legion, first place; Tempest, second place; and Collective Punishment, third place.
Other player-voted awards were rookie of the year to Ryan Morrow of Pennsylvania, best defense to Rochelle Gillen of Ohio and most improved to Brayden Yochum of Ohio.
Price said he intends to be at the 30th annual championship next year in Ohio.
“It was hard to win that Top Gun trophy,” he said. “I have to try to keep it.”
Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.