Virginia Power Soccer News
PRESS RELEASE (12 March 2007): The Tidewater Piranhas win Silver at the 2007 East Coast Power Soccer Regional Championships...During the two day tournament, held 9-10 March 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, the Piranhas competed with 9 other Division 2 teams from Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Florida, and Georgia. After making it through pool play with a 3-1 record, they defeated the Lakeshore Power from Birmingham, Alabama, 6-0 in the semi-finals. By this time, everyone knew about the ‘Cinderella Team’ from Virginia since they had been formed only 6 months earlier but were beating teams which had competed at multiple Regional and National Championships. And now they were in the finals, facing the only team that they hadn’t defeated, the DASA Dynamite 1 team from St. Louis, Missouri.
During pool play, the Disabled Athlete Sport Association (DASA) team had won in a close 3-2 match. Within the first 10 minutes of the championship match, DASA took the lead again. But the Piranhas kept fighting and with less than 3 minutes left, they tied it up when Kevin Mulholland (19) used his strength to push the ball by the DASA goalkeeper (who was eventually selected as the Goalkeeper of the Tournament for Division 2). The last few minutes of regulation time and the 2 overtime periods were marked with tough play and both teams refused to give up a goal. So, for the first time in Regional history, the final was decided by a penalty kick shoot-out. Unfortunately for the young team from Virginia, they were unable to convert a kick while DASA was able to squeeze the ball past the goalkeeper who made the initial block but saw the ball bounce off the goalpost and then deflect off his wheelchair into the goal. Nonetheless, this was a historic event for Virginia since it was the first time a power soccer team from Virginia had ever competed in the new sport.
The Tidewater team had a notable supporter in the stands during their final game when Mercy Akide-Udoh of the Hampton Roads Piranhas, and former star of the Nigerian National Team, came to cheer them on. She was the first African Women's Footballer of the year (2002) and was a 1999 and 2004 FIFA World All-Star. She played for Nigeria in the last three FIFA Women's World Cups and also helped Nigeria 's Super Falcons to three African Women Championships (AWC) titles in 1998, 2000 and 2002. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens , she scored two goals goals and assisted on another. Mercy was twice named a FIFA World All Star (1999 and 2004) and is known as one of the most dangerous strikers in the world. In 2005, she was named by FIFA as one of its 15 Ambassadors for Women Football and was chosen to present FIFA's Award for the Woman World Player of the Year for 2006.
Mercy Akide-Udoh with the Tidewater Piranhas
The Tidewater Piranhas consists of Nicollette Dwyer (10) and Ron Mayfield (48) from Virginia Beach, Mike Lamon (20) from Norfolk, Ryan Jeffress (14) from Portsmouth, and Isaac Earlenbaugh (12) and Kevin Mulholland from Chesapeake. The team is coached by Stephen Belechak of Virginia Beach , the boys' varsity coach at Bayside High School , with assistance from Steven Churm of Chesapeake . The team wears uniforms donated by the owner of the W-League Hampton Roads Piranhas, Marcie Laumann. Additionally, another Chesapeake resident, Chris Mulholland, was selected to officiate the Division 1 Championship Final which was won by the Indy Circle City Rollers from Indianapolis , Indiana .
The team is now raising money to compete at the National Championships in Indianapolis , Indiana , 7-8 Jun 2007.
Power soccer is played by athletes who use powered wheelchairs. The chairs are regulated to the same top speed and outfitted with footguards attached to the front of the chair which the players use to kick the ball. The game is played on a basketball court by two four-member teams who attempt to advance the ball into a goal about 20 feet wide. Participants include folks with quadriplegia, multiple sclerosis, head trauma, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. Some maneuver their chairs with a joystick, others with a puff of air or their chins. Like regular soccer, the game rewards agility, imagination and proper spacing. And, again like regular soccer, there is contact, this among 300-plus-pound power chairs.
This competitive sport has been played in various countries around the world for more than 30 years, but is just now exploding onto the public scene. The US Power Soccer Association (USPSA, www.powersoccerusa.net) was recently created to govern Power Soccer in the United States and the Fédération Internationale de Powerchair Football Association (FIPFA, www.fipfa.org) has 10 country members with more joining this summer.
The Virginia Power Soccer Association (VPSA, www.freewebs.com/vapowersoccer) was established in November 2005 as the first state power soccer association in the US .
The USPSA is sending a US Team to Japan in October to compete at the first-ever World Cup for Powerchair Football.