The Cardinals will start practice in earnest this weekend in preparation for the upcoming season. Our players have been working out and scrimmaging all summer but now we’ll get more serious.
Six of our players traveled to Houston over Labor Day weekend and competed in the pre-season, Texas International Shootout, where we finished with a 4-2 record and the Bronze medal (3rd place). For those of you who didn’t catch our updates of the tournament on our Charlottesville Cardinals Facebook page I have attached a summary below.
Speaking of Bronze medals, our US Women’s national team lost a heart-breaker to Australia this morning in the semi-finals of the Paralympic Games. They’ll now be playing for the Bronze medal and we wish them the best. Our Men’s national team plays at 2:00 p.m. (EDT) today in a semi-final match—also against Australia! Our best wishes to the men’s team, as well!
The word from Houston:
The Cardinals went to the Texas International Tournament with five of their players (Brandon Rush, Chris Robinson, Arthur Tracy, Eddie Wimbish, and Tom Vandever) and a “special guest” (Dan Altan). Our squad opened the tournament against the Houston Warriors on Friday and despite a long first half of unforced turnovers and cold shooting managed to go into the break trailing by only one point, 25-24. The respite was short, however, as the Cardinals continued a frustrating shooting drought which left them down 16 points with seven minutes to play. Charlottesville rallied a bit, but it was too little too late and the team fell to the Warriors, 57-45. Tom Vandever had 14 points for the Cardinals and Brandon Rush added 9.
After a couple of hours of rest the Cardinals took the floor again on Friday afternoon against the Mobile (AL) Patriots and this time came out blazing. After quickly jumping to an 18-0 lead, the team methodically built a 36-6 halftime edge and eventually scored a 62-21 victory. Chris Robinson led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Tom Vandever with 13, and Brandon Rush and Dan Altan with 10 each.
The loss on Friday meant that the Cardinals had to win both of their round-robin games on Saturday to advance to the semi-final round. The first opponent on Saturday was the Mexican Diablos squad which featured several former Mexican Paralympic players and Willie Hernandez (Dallas Mavericks). The game surged back and forth with multiple lead changes with the Cardinals squeezing out a narrow 32-29 halftime margin. In the second half the Diablos quickly erased the deficit and built a 49-42 advantage with just over six minutes to play.
The Cardinals kept scrapping, though, closed to 59-58 with 1:40 left to play. Charlottesville stopped the Diablos on their next possession and then scored to take a 60-59 edge with 1:01 left on the clock. Another strong defensive sequence stopped the Mexican team again, forcing them to foul. Arthur Tracy hit the front end of a 1 and 1 to extend the lead to 61-59 and preserve the win. Chris Robinson led all scorers with 19 points, Arthur Tracy had 17, and Brandon Rush added 13.
In Game 2 on Saturday the Cardinals faced another Houston team—the Houston Punishers! The quick and aggressive Punishers squad battled to a 25-all halftime score, but the Cardinals’ height eventually took its toll and Charlottesville notched a 55-43 victory, putting them into the semi-final pool. Arthur Tracy led Cardinal scorers with 16 points and Tom Vandever had 15.
While the good news was that the Cardinals were still in the hunt, the bad news was that following the game with the Punishers our team had to immediately pack up and travel to the other gym to face the Austin Rec’ers in a semi-final match. Not to whine too much, but our six-man team was feeling a bit poorly at this point. The Austin shooters came out on fire and hit four 3-pointers in the first half and the Cardinals found themselves down by a point at halftime, 30-29. Early in the second half the Cardinals twice built six-point leads but each time the Austin shooters erased the deficit before generating a four-point lead of their own with five minutes to go. The Cardinals never managed to regain the lead and fell, 55-51. Dan Altan had 14 points and Tom Vandever had 13 for the Cardinals.
After a night’s rest the Cardinals came out fresh and determined as they faced the South Texas Chariots for 3rd place. The Chariots stayed competitive for the first twelve minutes of the game but the Cardinals were hitting on all cylinders and took a 34-16 halftime advantage and built it into a 76-36 victory to claim the Bronze medal. Arthur Tracy led all scorers with 20 point, Brandon Rush and Tom Vandever had 18 each, and Eddie Wimbish had 10 points.