After a long season the Albuquerque Kings once again qualified within the top 16 invitees to the 2015 National Wheelchair Basketball championships in Louisville Kentucky. We came in at #9 in the nation with our first matchup against #8 Austin.
In this game against Austin, the Kings started strong finishing the first half with a lead. However a clerical error at the scorers table forced us into a player lineup we weren't prepared for before the start of the 2nd half. We still played strong but the change in our player rotation was taking its toll. We found ourselves in a tie game at the end of regulation but ended up losing at the end of overtime time.
The clerical error wasn't fixed until after our 2nd game against Northern California. At this time we were 0-2 and doing our best with a lineup we hadn't worked with. It was challenging but we did the best we could.
At the start of Game 3, the clerical error was fixed and we were back out 100%; it was a big difference. We finished off winning the last 2 games of the tournament which landed us a #13 spot in the nation.
Junior
We also got to support our New Mexico Junior team who had one of the most amazing and inspirational runs of the whole tournament. While New Mexico hasn't had a competing junior team in over 10 years, our kids practiced hard all year, really learned plays, chair skills and how to push through when things were hard. Dave and Lorraine did a great job as coaches and had them well prepared. The kids really stole the show this year finishing with at #4 in the Nation. Everyone was talking about how great they did and it was great having them come watch us and us watching them to support each other.
We had a great trip, we learned a lot about ourselves and a lot about our team. We built great relationships with other teams, other players, and continue to grow New Mexico wheelchair basketball.