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SAN DIEGO
Sharply overshadows
TAMPA

by Bill Renje and Huey Freeman
photo's by Delfina Colby

May 1996

The big question coming into the ninth National Quad Rugby Tournament, held March 29-31 in the Houston Texas area was whether the Tampa Generals would continue to dominate the US. scene. Tampa lost only one of the last four championship games --- to Tennessee in '94.

From the start it was clear that there was a disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Everyone knew which teams would finish in the top four. Tampa and Tennessee, perennial powers and winners of the last four championships, were locks. An already powerful and deep Sharp Shadow (San Diego) squad had become stronger, thanks to the acquisition of Mike Wyatt, last year's All-Nationals first team 2.5 from Casa Colina. Hometown favorite Gulf Coast, now starring Brad Updegrove (also an All-Nationals firsts teamer last year from San Antonio), would round out the top four. Could defending Tampa be dethroned by its fellow elite's? The only other drama would be which slots the 5 through 12 teams would fill. Conspicuous by its absence was San Francisco's Quadzilla—third place last year, champions in 1990, second place 1991-1993—who lost a 1-point battle for a tourney berth to Oregon at regionals.

The first day of competition went almost according to script— with two exceptions. Eleventh-seeded Lakeshore, making its first trip to Nationals, and Chicago, playing in its first national competition since 1988, advanced to the round of eight with impressive upsets. Chicago struck down the N.Y. Strykers, 38-31, and Lakeshore chewed up the Oregon Trail, 28-26.

Heading toward the title match Sunday afternoon there was no solid indication that Tampa could be stopped in its quest for one more first-place trophy. Before lunch on Friday, the Generals disposed of the big-city guys from Chicago and New York, 33-20 and 50-25, respectively. Casa Colina, last year's supercharged third-place finishers, made Tampa break a sweat on Saturday but pulled up short, 38-31

But second-seed Sharp Shadow (edged out by the Generals, 42-40, in the championship game at the Tampa Top End Tournament in January) was also tearing up everyone in its path. On Friday, Sharp extinguished the San Antonio Scorchers, 42-21, and defanged the Boston Pitbulls, 44-29 (Beantown was missing Pat Faherty, recovering from a serious bout of meningitis). The following day, Sharp decisively demolished Lakeshore, 37-17.

Meanwhile Tennessee, who came in hoping to regain the title, conquered all during the initial three rounds. After a 42-21 defeat of Lakeshore, a 40-19 pounding of the Oregon Trail, and a 41-24 whupping of the Pitbulls, the Quad Crushers faced off Saturday afternoon against the Shadow of sunny southern California. The winner of this semifinal match would earn the privilege of battling Tampa in the finale. Tennessee knew Shadow was capable of overturning its plans—at Top End a couple of months earlier in a semifinal match, Shadow had eliminated the Crushers, 43-37.

GETTING THERE WITH OR WITHOUT CLAMOR: THE SEMIS

On Saturday afternoon the semifinal game's outcome on court one of the South Houston Intermediate School was no surprise: Tampa handled Houston in front of a fierce opposition crowd. Houston fans, acknowledging their role with the team, wore fifth-man T-shirts, blew their horns, waved signs, and roared at a pitch unmatched in the history of quad rugby. Tampa veterans Joe Soares and Dave Gould calmly handled the pressure as the Generals built a commanding half-time lead and went on to win, 33-20. At the same time on court two, the contenders in the other semi locked chairs in a quieter, more intense struggle. Tennessee and San Diego battled to a 9-9 knot after one period, with Shadow jumping to a 3-point lead at the end of the half. tied up at 28 at the start of the final period, Tennessee gave up the ball twice on turnovers, leading to a breakaway 5-point gap for Sharp with just over five minutes to play. Tennessee narrowed the chasm to 42-39 as the final horn blew and the Sharpsters celebrated their first shot at a championship.

"That finished us," Tennessee's rookie coach, Mike Sells, says of his team's errors early in the last quarter. "We lost our momentum." Sells, formerly the Nashville Wheelcats basketball coach, was impressed with Sharp's deep bench. He believes Sharp's constant use of all its team members is going to change the way rugby is played. Sells says, "Sharp's depth will put pressure on Tennessee and Tampa. Rugby's evolving. You're going to need a rounded squad to compete at a high level."

In the semifinal game Sharp's conditioning and depth became apparent—its strength lies in its depth. You don't wear down a superbly conditioned team like Tennessee unless you've put in long training hours. Sharp might have the strongest and fastest combination in the country from 2.0 through 3.0 with Dan McCauley, Mike Wyatt, Rick Draney, and Troy McGuirk.
The championship and third-place games were played in a larger venue than all the previous ones—the spacious Phillips gymnasium in nearby Pasadena—to accommodate all the players, coaches, and fans who wanted to see the last matches. This would prove to be a major factor according to one coach, or a non-factor according to another.

In the battle for third, Gulf Coast once again filled the seats with enthusiastic partisans who hooted, hollered, and blew horns. The powerful Quad Crushers regained their lost momentum, subduing the Hurricane, 35-29.

From the opening warm-ups of the championship contest, it was apparent Shadow players had the unity and the hunger necessary to capture the title. From the methodical manner in which they circled the court to the way they meticulously executed their drills, Shadow was ready to claim its first championship—as a team.

"It's a team thing with us," tournament MVP Wyatt would later say. "We practice as a team, we work out as a team, and we go out and listen to music as a team. We're a team on and off the court. That's our strength."

In the opening period both squads pushed the ball up-court effectively, breaking each other's full-court pressure. Sharp, however, forced Tampa to work much harder to break the press. Sharp played a flawless first quarter, with Wyatt and McGuirk working off picks by McCauley and Dan Guillou. Shadow scored on every possession of the opening quarter. Tampa was forced into two turnovers within 40 seconds in the last 1:30. Sharp converted and took a 13-12 lead.

Sharp continued to hammer Tampa with its press, using McCauley and Guillou to neutralize Soares. At this point, Sharp's depth came into play. Draney, one of the fastest 2.5s in the country, came in along with Ralph Shadowen to give Sharp a potent 2.5, 2.5, 2.0, 1.0 lineup, which further wore down the Generals. Shadow converted on Tampa's third turnover of the half to go up, 23-20, with a little over two minutes left in the half. When McGuirk squeezed around a Guillou pick in the key in the halfs closing seconds, Sharp had a 26-23 lead at the break.

The Generals came out in the second half with the grit of a team that had won many tough battles. They forced Sharp into two turnovers in one and a half minutes. Soares stole an inbounds pass and scored to close the deficit to 29-28 midway through the third. Sharp held on for a 36-35 lead going into the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately for Tampa, Sharp's depth was beginning to wear down the Generals in the fourth quarter. With Wyatt ailing from a severe cold, Sharp Coach Gordon McGuirk used Draney and Wyatt as interchangeable parts. Sharp put in seven players, circulating them in and out like hockey players, while Tampa relied on four: Darren Ransome, who has replaced recently retired Dan Casady as a starter, and veteran stalwarts Soares, Gould, and Rick Marshall.

An aggressive Shadow press caused a crucial Tampa turnover, which Sharp converted into a goal with 3:41 left in the contest. Draney broke Tampa's spirit with an interception and a goal, to give Sharp an insurmountable lead (44-40) with 2:48 left.
With chants of "Shadow, Shadow, Shadow" raining upon them from the crowd, Sharp celebrated its first championship victory. The final was 48-44, a record-high total score in a title match. It sets the mark for most goals by the winner and loser. Last year's championship score was Tampa 39, Tennessee 31.

One of the classiest players in wheelchair sports, Wyatt tearfully savored the championship. "It's a high I've never felt before," he said. "This is the most incredible feeling I've ever felt." Gordon McGuirk, a retired Marine Corps officer and father of Sharp's Troy McGuirk, has coached Shadow into three successive Nationals. He said he thought his men played their best game ever. "The number-one factor was that the team focused throughout the game—for 32 minutes," he said. "In the past, we lost concentration in games against Tampa and had too many turnovers."

When asked why the coach uses all his players rather than just the four best, the congenial gentleman said, "If you keep fresh players in, they don't get tired as easily. They are tired at the end of the game, but players on other teams are more tired. We're fortunate to have the talent and caliber of people and the dedication."

Tampa Coach Terry Vinyard acknowledged Sharp's excellence but was not shy about his feelings concerning playing the championship game on a court with a rubberized surface. "Not to take anything away from Shadow because they played us tough all year, but a national championship game should not be played on this type of court," Vinyard said. "We played this team four times this season, and we beat them four times, but we played them on hardwood courts. Then we come over here where both teams have to play on this court, but they have more depth."

However, McGuirk didn't agree that the court surface was a determining factor in the outcome of the game. "Nobody had
an advantage," he said. "The surface was played on by all four teams. Tennessee and Houston didn't say anything about it. My players made no negative comments [about] the surface."

ASCENDANT SQUADS

Besides Houston, which climbed from seventh last year into the final four, two other upwardly mobile achievers came to the big show. Eleventh-seeded Lakeshore, which had proven itself a genuine national-level force by beating Oregon, 28-26 on Friday, saved its best effort for Saturday. The quad-rugby world was shocked as the Demolition upset the veteran-laden Boston Pitbulls, 37-36, in triple overtime. And were they just thrilled to be up in the fifth/sixth-place game? Absolutely not. They almost won it—falling to Casa Colina, 22-21

The Birmingham upstarts were the talk of the tournament. "Our philosophy was to come here and learn from other teams," said Demolition Coach Kevin Orr. "Earlier in the week, people said that Lakeshore didn't belong, but we wanted to let our play talk. Hopefully, we proved ourselves by beating Boston and losing by only one to Casa [Colina]." Demolition's Rookie of the Year Brian Kirkland said, "I've been looking forward to playing other teams ranked higher than us. It's been a learning experience, getting here and seeing how well some of these other teams play and finding out what we're capable of."

Chicago came to Houston seeded ninth but moved up to seventh place by upsetting Oregon and New York. The Cruisers, fifth-place in their region last year, have been resurrected by the addition of former University of Illinois standouts Paul LeVasseur, Denny Weseman, and Bill Renje. With veteran Coach Steve Truels on the bench and longtime standouts Larry Labiak, Kirk Bonnell, and Dave Hansen still around, Chicago could become a contender in a year or two.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Huey Freeman is a frequent contributor to Sports 'N Spokes Magazine. He lives near Champaign, Ill, with his wife, Kate, and four children (the newest, Michala was born hours after this tournament). Freeman became interested in wheelchair sports while doing a story on quad rugby for the Daily Illini newspaper. His goal is to help the uninformed and misinformed understand what wheelchair sports really are.
Bill Renje has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois. He divides his time between writing sports for the Daily Southtown, a Chicago newspaper, and playing quad rugby for the Chicago Cruisers.

Delfina Colby is a photo journalist and contributor to Sports 'N Spokes Magazine.

Reprinted from Sports 'n Spokes Magazine May/June 1996

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This Page Last Updated on May 30, 1996