FORT DRUM, N.Y. — Tim Daoust had barricaded himself behind a wooden plank. He lay on the ground, maneuvering his body on all fours as he tried to line up a shot.

He had already taken out Micah Robinson, but once he got up and made his way to the spot Robert Welsh was hiding, the defensive end came out and bombarded his helpless defensive line coach with a slew of paintballs.

“It felt good, I’m not going to lie,” Welsh said. “When he ran over the barricade that I was hiding under, I said it had to be him, so I got up and I saw it was him and I kept shooting. I think I emptied my paintball gun.”

Welsh’s attack was one of many highlights of Syracuse’s final day at Fort Drum. After four days of training and fraternizing with the soldiers on the military base, the players and coaches spent Friday morning playing paintball before heading back to the SU campus.

Teammates stood along a chain-link fence, laughing and yelling whenever a player raised his hands and surrendered after getting hit.

“We had fun out there, man,” senior linebacker Cameron Lynch said. “Great way to go out for our seniors and a great way to end Fort Drum.”

Most players wore long-sleeve, loose-fitting attire. But not everyone.

Senior linebacker Josh Kirkland was one of a few who wore just a T-shirt. Center Jon Burton wore camouflage overalls. Assistant trainer Matt Mancz used a Syracuse shirt as a bandana.

It was a friendly atmosphere, but the competition wasn’t lost on the SU players.

Mitch Kimble took no mercy on a teammate when the backup quarterback fired from point-blank range as the victim tried to slide behind a rusted-over crate.

The 90-minute excursion ended with a matchup between the seniors and the coaching staff. Afterward, Shafer addressed the team, bitter with the coach’s defeat.

“We were just trying to renegade and just light the coaches up as best we could,” Welsh said. “If we got hit, to be honest, we were just going to stay in and keep shooting.”

Published on August 15, 2014 at 1:36 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3