Quad Rugby/Story - Texas Tuneup 2

UNITED STATES QUAD RUGBY ASSOCIATION

January 2007

Texas Tune-up Round 2
by Landon Groff

It’s getting close to that time of year again where teams either pick it up or go home. The weekend of January 27-28, the three teams from Texas met up again in San Marcos at Texas State University. The weekend consisted of lots of banging and innovative pulmonary and cardiac testing. As a result, students, led by Lyn Litchke, increased their knowledge of the sport and gathered piles of information to help the athletes gain endurance.

Friday and Saturday morning consisted of athletes meeting with the staff. Tests were given, per athlete, to get data on lung function. Then each athlete was given a heart rate monitor and sent to the track to push a timed mile. Upon completion, the students processed the data and informed the participants of their high, low, and average rates while pushing full speed. Lyn had a new addition to the studies this time. A select group of athletes were given a power lung device to work on respiratory strengthening over the next seven weeks. There was also a control group of athletes to compare lungs with when the teams meet again in March before sectionals. The staff anticipates the athletes will really gain significant strength in their lungs so the results should be interesting.

On Saturday afternoon the teams mixed it up and played several short pickup games conducted by Gumbie. Overall, the teams enjoyed playing in new lineups and the beginners and intermediate players gained a lot of knowledge from some of the best in the world.

Sunday morning began with an early San Antonio v. Pasadena game followed by Pasadena v. Texas and Texas v. San Antonio. Lots of spectators showed up including Scott Porter aka “Jason Street” along with some of the other Friday Night Lights crew. Pasadena had a skeleton crew (minus David Bynum, Walter Lowery, and Rob Krows) so it gave San Antonio a chance to play a variety of lineups to see how they could contain that speedy 1.5. San Antonio got the win, Kearley got exercise, and some of Pasadena’s newer players saw nothing but court time. The second game was nice for Texas’ developing squad because they were on the court the majority of the game mixed in with their starters. It was quite evident that two of Stampede’s newer players, Jace Beck and Chase Bearden, have been following Gumbie’s instruction as they have picked it up considerably from last season. The final game of the day started with San Antonio dropping back in the key to try to neutralize Texas’ speed. It seemed to work alright but the speed and talent of Texas prevailed. The Ruff Ryders, led by Coach Donovan Fikes and veteran Gil Garcia got to implement some new strategies to take to sectionals.

This season, San Antonio and Pasadena have both gone 2-2 facing each other. A loss for each team was without all starters. Mountain sectionals will be exciting! Who will show up to play and seal that final D II spot? It will be a dog fight for all teams with the uncertainty of who will step down from D I. A big thanks goes out to Lyn and everyone from Texas State, Gumbie, and all the other support for another great weekend of rugby!

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