“It’s very exciting,” said 57-year-old Jim Roebken. “All the guys, as we got closer and closer (to the playing date) just got more excited.”
This will not be the first time competing on the national level for some of the players. Four of the athletes — who are current or former police officers — played in national police tournaments.
The Sportsdecks qualified for the tournament a year ago when they won their division of the Ohio Senior Olympics. However, accomplishing that feat was not too difficult.
“We were the only team in our division, so we ended up playing a 60-plus team out of Toledo because we had to play a few games. So we would have automatically qualified,” said Roebken. “I don’t want people to think there were a whole bunch of teams in the tournament and we kicked butt.”
The men left for the tournament Saturday morning. Their first game was Monday, Aug 10. The championship game is on Wednesday, Aug 12.
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