Mandy Marchiano Returns to RVA for the River City Rumble
This weekend, Sportable is hosting the region’s first River City Rumble Wheelchair Rugby Tournament. The United States Wheelchair Rugby Association (USWRA) sanctioned event is also one of the first-ever Low Point Tournaments in the country.
Mandy’s Back In Town
Mandy Marchiano was one of the founding players for the Sportable Possums Wheelchair Rugby team when it was established in 2019. But after two seasons, she was recruited to play with the University of Arizona Wildcats Wheelchair Rugby Team and relocated to Arizona. She’s back in town this weekend and will be representing Sportable once again during the River City Rumble.
“In the beginning, the Possums were just doing our best to learn from each other as we were all new players, and Sportable was a great support system for that,” Mandy said.
Mandy traveled to regional tournaments in her first season with the Possums, but as a Wildcat in the regular division, the travel increased to tournaments in cities like Detroit, Tampa, Phoenix, and nationals in Illinois. The team also hosted a tournament in Tucson.
Mandy stated that the things that made her continue to improve her rugby skills were the improvements she made in her daily life. Years before starting adaptive sports, Mandy was using a power wheelchair every day – up until trying wheelchair rugby.
“I got in the chair that first practice and I was pushing pretty easily, so I thought to myself, ‘if I can push this rugby chair, I should be able to be able to push a manual chair,’ so after that, I built up enough strength to switch to a manual chair that I’m in every day now.”
Not only did her physical health improve, but Mandy added that the immensely positive atmosphere of the Sportable Possums’ practices helped her continue her adaptive sports career.
“I loved the team,” Mandy said, “The camaraderie of our team at Sportable was such a great atmosphere. The volunteers, the coaches, and my teammates, and everyone, even the staff at Sportable, were just people that were fun and people that you wanted to be around.”
Mandy said that in the beginning, the Sportable Possums mainly consisted of low pointers.
“A lot of us involved in Sportable were lower level classifications, so when the opportunity for a low point tournament came up, I was so happy that Sportable grabbed it and really put the effort into making it a big deal. There are so many low point classification players who want to play more, and having a low point specific clinic and tournament really gives them more court time and more playing time.”
She also stated that she’s excited to compete in the River City Rumble tournament because it gives her a chance to be around players of the same classification and similar levels of function.
“I’m really excited to see how Sportable hosts its first tournament, and I know it’s going to be great. We’ve always traveled to all these other teams, so it’s really cool to be able to welcome everybody to our home.
What Is Low Point Wheelchair Rugby?
Wheelchair rugby players are assigned a classification value, determined by their level of competitive function. A classification value of 0.5 means the player is at the lowest functional level, to 3.5, which is the highest functional level. The total value of all players on the court must not exceed eight points.
The River City Rumble is part of the first-ever USWRA Low Point Rugby season. Low Point Rugby is specifically for players classified as a 1.5 or below, with the on-court total not exceeding 3.5 points. Low Point Rugby allows players with lower competitive function, who typically have a defensive role in the game, to be more involved in moving the ball and offensive play.
Tournament play begins at 9am on July 15 and July 16 at Highland Springs High School, and the tournament schedule can be found here.