Young Athletes Partake In 22nd Annual Katie Kirlin Junior Wheelchair Basketball Tournament In West Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- More than 100 young athletes from all over the east coast competed in a wheelchair basketball tournament on Saturday. CBS3 was at the 22nd annual Katie Kirlin Junior Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in West Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's own Katie's Komets competed in Saturday's event, along with teams from Maryland, Virginia and Connecticut.
The tournament is named after Katie Kirlin, who died in 1989.
"It's a way to carry on our daughter's legacy. She was a very strong girl, she fought cancer. She became a wheelchair athlete herself. We knew how important it was for her to get involved here because she became paralyzed. I think for all these kids it's a real sense of community," Roseann Kirlin, Katie's mother, said.
The team that won on Saturday will qualify for the National Wheelchair Basketball Association tournament in the spring.