Southern Region Dominates Eastern Sectional
written by Bill Renje

In an era where the evils of big-time athletics have seeped into amateur sports, a team developed largely through a grass-roots effort is always a refreshing story. While many teams, professional as well as amateur, open up their checkbook to lure the best athletes. And players, acting as guns for hire, sell their services to the highest bidder. A blue print still exists for building a squad from the ground up. Through developing players from within a program, and then adding a key free agent where needed, a team can still compete at an elite level.

Take for instance the South Florida Rattlers, a seventh-year team, based in West Palm Beach. The Rattlers core group of players has been together since the beginning. But even as they continued to grow as a group, they still lacked that dominant, number one player needed to become a national-caliber squad. But that all changed when team founder Brenda Cole saw a guy in a wheelchair by the name of Emesion Calle exiting a train behind the gym in which the Rattlers practice. Calle, from Columbia, had come to Florida for vacation and was looking to play wheelchair basketball. What awaited him was a starring role as a 3.5 speedster, and the final piece to the team puzzle.

After taking its lumps, and learning as a team how to win, the Rattlers advanced to the USQRA Nationals for the first time in the teams history after finishing second at the Eastern Sectional Playoffs held in West Palm Beach. The Tampa Generals, perennial national powers, split into two squads, Tampa I and II, and finished third and first respectively, rounding out the National qualifiers from the East.

The war of the weekend in the six-team round robin took place Friday afternoon between second-seeded Tampa I and the Rattlers, the number-three seed. The Generals had beat South Florida by two in the semifinals of the Valdosta Cup in its only full squad meeting of the year. With the reward being the probable second place finish for the weekend, and the higher seeding awaiting the victors at Nationals, this match-up was tightly contested and heated from the beginning.

South Florida rode Calle, its high-speed stallion, from the start, while its other starters .5 Charles Ray, 1.5 Dave Harrison, and 2.5 Rich Hearn played their usual, solid roles. The Rattlers controlled the tempo from the beginning by taking an early three-goal lead. While the Generals hung tough, and fought back to tie the contest a couple of times, they were never able to seize control of the game. Meanwhile, Calle was unstoppable as he scored 30 goals in the Rattler's 39-35 victory.

Ray admitted that beating a Tampa team in such a big tournament was huge for the South Florida program.
"(The win) was kind of a mark that we got to the next level," he said. "It used to be that we measured ourselves against Sarasota. But this shows how far we've come."

Calle, who comes from an impoverished background, plays with a joyful, child-like attitude, similar to the way Sammy Sosa plays baseball. It's a long way from the dirt roads of Columbia, playing wheelchair basketball in rundown equipment, to playing wheelchair rugby on the biggest, most competitive stage in the world. Calle, is understandably still a little bit in awe.

"It's tough," he said. "It's like a new world for me. When I came here for the first time, I didn't want to think about being the best. But now it's strange with everyone looking at me and my team."

Meanwhile, Saturday evening's match-up for South Florida was pivotal. If it could somehow Stop Tampa II with its high-point offensive weapons of 3.5 Joe Soares, and 3.0 Max Stroblamair, it would no doubt be the biggest victory in the clubs history. Not to mention, a win would give them the Eastern Sectional Championship provided they defeated a veteran-laden Boston Pitbull team on Sunday. A victory was not to be, however, as Tampa II played with all the poise expected of a veteran, championship team en route to a commanding 39-25 victory.

Sunday afternoon provided the back drop for what would be the deciding game of the round-robin as Tampa I squared off against Tampa II. If Tampa II could pull off the upset, it would leap over South Florida as the result of overall point-differential in the event of the three-way tie. The scenario would be avoided however, as Tampa II capped off an undefeated weekend with a 30-24 victory.

"A lot of hard work paid off for our team," said Rattler captain Dave Harrison. "Everything's a process. I don't think we ever finished a season in the top 20 before now."

As the three-qualifiers, anxiously await Nationals in Phoenix, Arizona, Tampa coach Terry Vinyard expects the field to be as competitive as ever.
"It's going to be the toughest tournament of all the Nationals," Vinyard said. "With Tampa II, we're going to try and get into the top four and go from there. And Tampa I, we have to see where we are going to be seeded, and try and get into the top eight."

--Three other teams gave valiant efforts as their seasons came to a conclusion. Former Northeast powers New York and Boston squared off on Saturday afternoon with fourth place on the line. In yet another memorable match-up in the rivalry's storied history, the contest went back and forth, before New York pulled out a 36-35 victory in the final minute. Philadelphia rounded out the six-team field.

Tournament Results

• Special thanks from the Rattlers to the City of Lake Worth, Freddie Grice, PVAF, MPO, and Sportaid for supporting this event on the local level.