No. 1 SharpShooters, No. 2 Grunts To Meet For First Time
The top two-seeded and most dominant teams will meet in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s (NWBA) Military Division final. There won’t be a repeat champion this year.
The top-seeded Bridge2Sports SharpShooters and No. 2-seeded San Antonio Grunts each won by double-digits in Saturday afternoon’s semifinals at Plassman Athletic Center at Turnstone in Fort Wayne, Ind., and they will meet in Sunday’s 10 a.m. championship game.
Both teams stayed undefeated with 4-0 records, but in different ways.
Bridge2Sports defeated No. 4-seeded Wounded Warriors Abilities Ranch (WWAR) Florida, 73-42, in its semifinal, while San Antonio came back from a second-quarter deficit for a 64-48 victory over the No. 3-seeded and defending tournament champ Wolfpack Vets.
Bridge2Sports jumped out to a 22-7 lead against WWAR after the first quarter and kept rolling along, increasing the lead to 44-14 at halftime and 60-26 after three quarters.
Navy veteran Antoine Gray says the team kept its intensity up from the start, and that pushed them to the win. Gray is a bilateral amputee (left leg below the knee and right leg above the knee) and was injured in August 2000 in a car accident after he fell asleep while driving and drove off a freeway overpass in Houston. This is his first year playing in the NWBA’s Military Division after he received an invitation.
Bu he thinks they will need to stay more disciplined with their chairs on defense Sunday.
“Make sure that we’re not putting ourselves in danger of getting, you know, little ticky-tack fouls and hit our shots. We’re playing well together. We’re talking together. And I think those are the two main things,” says Gray, who served from 1996 to 1998 as a nuclear electronics technician. “No weak, iffy fouls. And make our shots, and I think we’ll be good.”
Bridge2Sports defeated all of its opponents by eight points or more, including three by at least 20 points. The SharpShooters crushed the LWSRA Hawks, 74-14, in their opening game and dropped ParaSport Spokane, 100-20, before a tighter 57-49 win over the Wolfpack Vets.
Meanwhile, San Antonio rallied from a second-quarter deficit thanks to Blake McMinn’s post presence and its outlet game after missed shots, especially in the second half.
San Antonio led 27-26 at halftime, hitting two free throws with 2.9 seconds left in the second quarter to gain the lead. Then, the Grunts started on a second-half flurry. They opened up a 43-34 lead with 2 minutes and 28 seconds left in the third quarter before the Wolfpack Vets crept back in the fourth.
With its lead cut to 52-46 with 5:03 left in the final period, San Antonio closed the game on a 12-2 run — including the final 10 straight points. The Grunts’ Charles Armstead scored four of those 10, both on layups after quick releases after a miss.
“Well, it was just something that was open. They weren’t covering us leaking out. And the opportunity just presented itself. And so, I just tried to leak out, and we got a good rebound and got a good outlet pass,” Armstead says.
This game was closer for the Grunts.
San Antonio had previously dropped the Charlotte Hornets Teal, 73-22, in its opening pool play game, then knocked off Charlotte Hornets Purple, 65-29, before taking care of WWAR Florida, 80-42, in its third game.
A 48-year-old Army veteran and Paralyzed Veterans of America Lone Star Chapter member, Armstead sustained a right hemipelvectomy, amputating his right leg and a portion of his pelvis, in 2009 after a gunshot wound while in Iraq. He’s played wheelchair basketball for the past 14 years, and this marked his second year playing in the Military Division.
“I just like the camaraderie because I know so many people from just, like, camps and stuff like that. So, it’s almost like a reunion. Come and get to reunite with and meet old friends again,” Armstead says.
National Wheelchair Basketball Association Military Division Tournament Day 2
Pool Play
WWAR Florida 65, Charlotte Hornets Teal 39
Friendly Games
Charlotte Rollin’ Hornets Teal 47, LWSRA Hawks 26
Charlotte Hornets Purple 48, ParaSport Spokane 37
Semifinals
No. 1 Bridge2Sports SharpShooters 73, No. 4 WWAR Florida 42
No. 2 San Antonio Grunts 64, No. 3 Wolfpack Vets 48