UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION
January 2006
New Faces, Tough Competition, a Repeat Champion
Emerges
By Brian Sterner & Justin Stark
On
January 20-22nd, 2006, over 100 athletes traveled the globe to Tampa,
Florida. This journey wasn’t made to enjoy the 80
degree temperatures, but rather to compete in the 14th annual Coloplast
International Wheelchair Rugby Tournament. This year’s international field
consisted of New Zealand, Great Britain, and Canada. The U.S. portion of
the field came strong with the defending USQRA champion Texas Stampede,
Phoenix Heat, Hoveround (Sarasota) Gunners, Magee (Philadelphia) Eagles,
and the tournament host Tampa Generals.
The early part of Friday saw all the top seeds quickly taking care of business and beating their lower seeded opponents. The latter part of the day was quite the opposite. Team New Zealand, without 2 key components from their Paralympic team, found themselves trailing the Tampa Generals by 2 heading into the 3rd quarter. New Zealand remained composed and eventually pulled ahead for good against the tournament host. And in what was probably the most shocking result of the season thus far, The Phoenix Heat gave the defending National Champion Texas Stampede a 9 point thrashing. Japanese import, Shinichi Shimakawa, along with Paralympians Andy Cohn, Brent Poppin, and Scott Hogsett proved the Phoenix Heat is a legitimate National Championship contender, if not the favorite.
On the second day of competition the buzz of Murderball was in the air as stars Zupan and Joe Soares came head to head in competition. The typically boisterous Soares failed to get under Zupan’s skin. But even with the cheers of high school friend Christopher Igoe coming from the crowd, Zupan’s stampede fell short to the Brits by two goals.
Host Tampa played their best game of the tournament against Phoenix, the soon to be ranked #1 team in the USQRA. The Generals used their ball controlled offense to play even through 2 quarters, but Phoenix’s speed proved to be too much to overcome.
On Sunday, Tampa rebounded to finish 7th with a victory over the surging Magee Eagles. The Hoveround Gunners with Canadian import Mike Whitehead bested the New Zealand Wheelblacks in a close game to finish 5th. But Texas took another tough defeat to a Canadian team that was without Garret Hickling.
In the Championship, the strategic plan of Great Britain simply could not force turnovers in the second half. Echoes of Soares could be heard at the 6 minute to go mark, “The pressure is on them, they have no time outs left.” But whether it was Shimakawa’s speed or the consistent play of Cohn and Poppen, the team from Phoenix found its way to the top of the pile.
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