UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION
November, 2001
Collision in the Heartland
by Alan
Ballinger
The 4th Annual Columbus Collision Quad Rugby tournament was held in Columbus, Ohio on November 9-11th, and it appears that many changes are taking place in the Heartland section. Some teams have recently lost key players, while others are struggling to operate independently of one another. All of this had a direct effect on the number of the teams attending this year’s competition. However, while the number of teams was down to five, the level of competition for this round-robin event was still quite high.
It was good to see St. Louis with a team again, aided by a couple of players from Springfield. And what seems to be a growing controversial issue, the Pittsburgh and Columbus teams joined together two-weeks before the tournament. Despite being old friends, Columbus lowered the arch on St. Louis in the opening game 37-11. Meanwhile, London Ontario beat the Milwaukee Iron to set the pace for their weekend. The Chicago Bears met with local rivals Milwaukee, in what ended up as a 5-point loss for “da Bears” 36-41.
Day two of the Columbus Collision verified that the strongest team at the tournament was Ontario. While a couple of the teams played them well, Ontario came out on top in both of their games on this day. Chicago and Milwaukee each chalked up a win, while Columbus and St. Louis were not as lucky. Without a win in four games, St. Louis was eliminated and finished in fifth place.
The final day of competition once again paired up Columbus and Chicago, this time for third place. Though they had split the previous days matches, it was Chicago that took the important win to edge out Columbus, 34-32. Ontario met Milwaukee for the Collision Championship and won, 46-31. Milwaukee had a very good tournament, and depending on what transpires for the post season, they could well be playing in the D-I Nationals come April.
As the season opener for each team present, no one was totally disappointed with their weekend. Knowing that much more rugby is coming provides room for improvement, as well as the chance to get revenge. Special thanks go out to the classifiers who saw more than 20 players during the weekend. One classifier stated that they were not abused with complaints from the athletes being classed, as they often are. All in all, it was a good tournament with good competition and sportsmanship. And if anyone left Columbus hungry…it was there own fault!!!
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