1. earn St. Croix wins gold medal at Flag Footba
_ lSSTAFF-
ST. CROIX - Team St. Croix,
m the St. Croix Flag Football
League, beat Team Mexico 13-7 to
win the gold medal at the
mernational Flag Football World
roup last week in Panama City,
florida.
The international competition
held from March 22rid to
arch 26th and featured teams
around the world playing flag
tball against each other in a
rnament format. Team St.
.x defeated a heavily' favored
USA in the semi-finals to
reach the finals for the 2nd year in
row, eventually besting the
e ending champions, Team
_mco, for the gold medal.
This year marks the culmina-
of4 years work in which Team
Croix continued to improve
each year. Four years ago-the
ream's first year in the World
up-they did not receive a medal.
The next year, they battled for a
- bronze medal, losing to a highly
ored Team USA. Their 3rd year
the tournament, they beat Team
A. and lost in the Championship
• Team Mexico. This year Team
Croixwas ready, and in-a repeat
F last years final, they defeated
• e defending champions to gain
e gold. .
Coach and quarterback of the
team, Danly McIntosh said this of
. team's effort, 'These teams that
participate usually play year long
and we play only in the summer
and we were ready to set a new
standard-we've been on the map
a few years, but this was our
rear,"
Another reason Coach McIntosh
- proud of his team is that most
teams bring 25-30 players, and
Team St. Croix brought a team of
only 18 players.
"There's nothing richer than
beating Team USA-they have a lot
ofpride in their game and we shut
them down 2 years in a row. What
a rush."
Mclntosh brought home some
esrra hardware being honored as
e MVP of the World Cup
Tournament by displaying a spec-
tacular performance on the offen-
. 'e side of the ball with his dual
talents-throwing and running the
ball.
Marvin Petersen of Team St.
Croix explained the team's .readi- .
ness, "We prepared hard and we
knew what we had to do."
·Weknew what we were lacking
last year,"said Petersen ofthe finals
versus the defending champs,
'Team Mexico surprised us, and
they knocked us off last year in
the finals. This year we were ready
for them."
Petersen gave much credit to the
competitive spirit ofthe WorldCup
as wellas to silver medalists, Team
Mexico, who had a quarterback
called "Gato" (cat. in Spanish). a
running and passing quarterback
that proved to be a major chal-
lenge to stop.
'The competition was strong,"
said Petersen of the teams at the
WorldCup, 'We met a couple ofex-
NFL players," referring to former
Kansas City Chief wide-receiver,
Dave Klemic, as well as Arena
Football players from the states,
along with Canadian Football
League players_Teams partic-
ipating in the tournament came
from England, Canada, Central
America and the Caribbean.
The sport of flag football lacks
much attention on the island, but
the rules are the same as regular
tackle football,except that there are
9 players on each side rather than
.the normal 11 players in tackle
football. Also, in flagfootball there
are 2 flags on either hip which
need to be stripped offfor the play-
er to considered tackled. '
In a word, "Amazing," said
Marvin Petersen summing up the
WorldCup experience. "Meetingall .
the other countries, we learned so
much from them-about the differ-
ent cultures. And we learned from
the other teams, like discipline
from Mexico. Each play they ran
was well designed. Team USAhad
a strong passing game."
when asked what typifiedTeam
St. Croix, Petersen explained that
they had a balanced attack on
offense, with a 50/50 run-to-pass
ratio. And on defense, they relied
on the speed-rush abilities of
Rinaldo Newton.an explosivelyfast
defensive end who was named the
Defenstve Player of the Year. His
outside pass rush was key to con-
taining the accurate pocket pass-
ing from the seasoned quarterback
ofTeam USA .
On a side not, during the World
Cup competition. there are many
side tourriaments held to show-
case smaller teams from smaller
regions that can't field a 9-on-9
team. Indicating the strength of
this year's team, in the 8-on-8 tour-
nament Team St. Croix brought
horne a second gold medal.
Considering that Team St. Croix
has gotten better each year, and
considering the immense talent
here in the VI, they will be the
team to beat next year at the World
Cup tournament being held in San
Jose, Costa Rica.
Team St. Croixwon the worldchampionship offlagfootballin a tourna
The team is not resting on its
laurels though, and they are gear-
ing up-for next year in the st. Croix
'Flag FootballSummer League,with
games being held on Sunday after-
noons .this summer at the
Educational Complex.
'We're going to start preparing
now. OUFmain goal is to get young
kids to learn about flag foo
and to play it. We need a lot [
exposure. It [flag football] is
known on St. Croix,but we ho
get people involved," Pete
explained about the team's
and future. 'We're striving
USVI team to attend the
Cup, to get all the great ath