‘Paintballs’ Bursting in Air : Sport Develops a Small Following in Ventura County

Maneuvering through underbrush, Bob McMahan and his two camouflaged teammates kept their weapons silent as they scaled a steep hill to claim high ground over their opponents.

The strategy, however, failed miserably when an enemy squad sneaked up the hillside and fired from the right flank. Moments later, McMahan felt a stinging pain on his arm and side, his sight suddenly obscured by bright orange liquid splattered on his protective goggles.

“All of a sudden, a hail of ‘paintball’ fire came in at us,” said McMahan, 36, of Ojai.

McMahan, a radiologist at Ventura County Medical Center, joined more than a dozen devotees of a sport called paintball in tangling Sunday on state-owned land off Creek Road in the Ojai Valley.

Developed a decade ago, the sport is regulated to some extent by the International Paintball Players Assn., which boasts thousands of members. The association sets safety standards and rules for tournaments held around the country. The Lone Star Open Tournament in Commerce, Tex., earlier this year featured 18 teams, with the winning one taking home a purse of $6,500.

The sport was even popularized this season on television’s “L.A. Law.”

But in Ventura County, paintball is played on a strictly informal basis, with the Ojai Valley Surplus and Discount store serving as an informal meeting place for players. Matches are generally held twice a month, and participants say that paintball association rules of conduct are stressed.

Sunday, four teams of three players each fanned out from a staging area, armed with single-shot pistols and semiautomatic rifles capable of firing 200 rounds of water-soluble dye capsules a minute. The mock armies battled during six 25-minute matches.

The capsules, discharged at a velocity of up to 300 feet per second, can strike with enough force to raise welts. But players are more likely to injure themselves by twisting an ankle while ranging over a three- to four-acre wooded area in pursuit of the rival army.

In most matches, far more paintballs explode on tree trunks and bushes than on the players’ camouflaged garb, face masks and goggles. A direct hit generally draws a cry of “ouch,” followed by the victim shouting “dead man” to signal surrender.

In some local matches, plastic mines--known as “playmores”--and plastic hand grenades are also employed. The water-soluble dye blasts from the devices on impact.

Jerry Yeksavich, 37, of Oxnard played for the first time Sunday. “I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Yeksavich, an X-ray technician at the medical center.

His co-worker, Gerry Russell, 42, of Ventura, was equally giddy about the experience. “It’s the closest thing to being a kid again.”

Participants in local matches have ranged from 12 to 60 years old. On a few occasions, armies of up to 30 players each have battled.

Although a male-dominated sport, a regular player at the Ojai matches is sharpshooting Erin Riley, an 18-year-old Ventura College student. Riley and her boyfriend, Roger Worsham, are considered crack shots capable of taking out opponents at long range.

Worsham, 23, of Ojai, was one of the organizers of an eight-player team named the “Black Death Farm Boys,” which competed at a February tournament in Sacramento.

Asked how his team fared in the shootout, Worsham simply smiled and said, “They loved our name.”

Times correspondent Christopher Pummer contributed to this story.