UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

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Sarasota Smash

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Eastern Sectional Playoffs

FLORIDA HOT-BED FOR WINTER RUGBY
by John Bishop

Florida has always been a popular vacation destination in the winter but when you add the opportunity to play quad rugby here it quickly becomes the place teams want to go! Each of the first three months of 1997 will provide rugby teams from around the country and the globe an opportunity to converge on Florida to indulge in both.

January saw the Sarasota Riptide host the 3rd Annual "Sarasota Smash" over Super Bowl weekend in Sarasota, Florida. The Smash was developed for teams that have not yet emerged into the Top 20 to help provide a much-needed arena in which new and developing clubs could compete.

This year's tournament featured 6 teams of which four were local Florida clubs. The Dukes of St. Luke from Washington State and the Maine Roadrunners traveled from the top two corners of the US while the South Florida Rattlers, two developmental teams from Tampa, and tournament host Sarasota Riptide rounded out the field for what was a fun and competitive weekend of rugby.

While each team had hopes of glory at the tournament, it was the Tampa Generals and Suncoast Storm who quickly made their presence known on the court. Cruising through both Friday and Saturday undefeated, the two disciplined teams from Tampa ended up battling it out in the final on Sunday where the Generals took first place 25-24.

Other games of note included Friday's late night-heart stopper featuring the Dukes and Riptide who had never met. Both teams traded points evenly until Sarasota made a 5-point run at the start of the third period. Not to be outdone, the Dukes pulled out all stops and were again able to tie up the score and take a 1-point lead early into the fourth. As the period progressed, Sarasota's hometown crowd reared up and motivated the Riptide to stay with it. With a minute to go the hosts tied up the game and with 19 seconds remaining, pulled ahead to win by 40-39.

On Sunday morning the Dukes of St. Luke met the Maine Roadrunners for what became a controversial game. While Spokane had the game in control throughout, in the fourth period, the Roadrunners battled back and took a 1 point lead (32-31) with less than a minute to go. With just 39 ticks left on the clock, Spokane forced a turnover and recovered the loose ball and called time-out while rolling out of bounds. Maine argued that the player was out of bounds when time was called and the officials disagreed. After several minutes of heated debate the call stood. Maine continued their protest and technical fouls were issued to Mark Hughes and Donnie Wright (both 2.0's) of the Roadrunners. The Dukes quickly scored to tie the game, then stole the Roadrunners inbound and scored again to win the game 33-32.

Final placings were: Tampa General 1st, Suncoast Storm 2nd and Sarasota Riptide 3rd.
The All Tournament Team was as follows; 3.5 - Vi Varasane, 3.0 - Mark Hickey, 2.5 - Rich Hearne, 2.0 - Chad Farrington, 1.5 - Bill Renje, 1.0 Ed Hooper, 0.5 - Neil Gustafson, MVP - Mark Hickey