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UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION |
January 2007
The 7th Annual Knock & Roll Wheelchair Rugby tournament was held January 12-14, 2007 at Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation's new Therapeutic Recreation Center in Lake Worth, Florida. In attendance were the Lakeshore Demolition, Germany, Hoveround Gunners, London Annihilators, Pasadena Texans, Magee Eagles, Tampa Generals and local host South Florida Rattlers. After a short dedication ceremony by Palm Beach County Commissioners, day one of competition got underway. Respectful of the new facility, but relentless to their opponents, the Demolition rolled into town and promptly destroyed all who stood in their way. The Kirkland led squad with fellow wrecking crew members, Buckingham, Wilmoth, Brooks, Crouch, Vinzant, Sullivan and others showed speed, power, stamina and good team play under the watchful eye of Coach Orr. Lakeshore rolled through all competition winning its five games by an average of almost 15 goals. The resolve in this team to regain its USQRA Division I title, last won in 2003, seems stronger than ever and competitors better beware. This year’s Knock & Roll had European visitors with the #2 seeded German National Team making their first appearance. After a relatively easy game against Tampa, the Germans struggled to a 4 point victory against a very spirited #3 seed London (Ontario) team on opening day. In day-two action, Germany beat Magee and were put to the test in the crossover game, narrowly beating the outmanned Hoveround Gunners, 47-45. The Gunners played iron man rugby with a 5 man squad all weekend as two key players; Pat O’Connor and Joel Post were unable to attend.
In other games of note, the Pasadena Texans showed great fortitude and proved that when you do drills in practice instead of just scrimmaging, in late game situations you will have the edge. After trailing the South Florida Rattlers by as many as 7 points in the 3rd quarter of pool play, Pasadena willed their way to victory, defeating the Rattlers 49-46. The Rattlers showed signs of another collapse in the 7/8th place game against Tampa, but weathered the storm to win by 3 over a well balanced Tampa team. Tampa will be in tough company come post-season, but no one will ever be able to doubt the heart of the Generals as they will play until they drop. The Magee Eagles will certainly be a threat this year at Nationals, with standout 3.0 Adam Bencsik and the continuing emergence of class 2.5 Rob Deller. The Eagles flew high all weekend and finished the tournament in 3rd place. Look for the Eagles to make their first DI appearance at Nationals in Louisville in April. As for the London Annihilators, they put a hell of a scare into both the Germans and the Eagles. On Sunday they powered past Pasadena to earn a respectable 5th place finish for the weekend. In the end, pre-tournament seeding was mostly respected with Lakeshore playing Germany for the Championship. After a bit of a struggle in the first-quarter, the Demolition proved to be too much for the Germans. Lakeshore won the final 54-37, and took home their third consecutive K&R title. This year’s competition was first rate, and the tournament staff was fantastic as always! The entire event was first class and we cannot wait for the 8th Annual Knock & Roll tournament next January.
NOTE: This tournament was played using the 40 second shot clock rule, but with slight modifications. If the offensive team used a timeout, and the shot clock had less than 15 seconds left on it, the shot clock was then reset to show 15 seconds. If there was less than 15 seconds left on the game clock when a timeout was called, the offensive team would only get the amount of time left on the game clock to score. Teams seemed to like this modification as it provided an option for them if the shot clock was about to expire, or if an offensive player was trapped in the key. Since a time out had to be used to use this option, there was no advantage gained by any team. Look for this modification to be a proposed amendment of the current shot clock rule at the USQRA’s 2007 AGM in April.
FINAL STANDINGS ALL TOURNAMENT TEAM
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