Next weekend they'll battle for a national title in competition in Philadelphia.

"I love playing a team sport," said Culp, an adept ballhandler and defender for the team, sponsored by the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association. "It's just like able-bodied basketball. It's a high-intensity, fast game. [And] it's made me more confident to know I can do something well."

Culp lost her right leg to cancer at age 10. As part of rehabilitation, her parents, Nancy and Christopher, signed her up with WDSRA, a 28-year-old program that offers recreational opportunities to persons with physical and/or mental disabilities.

"It totally changed her life," Nancy Culp said. "She didn't even know how to play basketball, so they taught her."

WDSRA's wheelchair team is ranked second in the nation behind archrival Grand Rapids, Mich., a team with which they split six games this season. Last year the Warriors went 26-9 and took fifth in the national finals as Culp was named second-team all-tournament.

The WDSRA group was also the favorite entering the high school tournament, which is running concurrently with the Class A boys finals at the Peoria Civic Center.

One of Culp's coaches is Dan Humphreys, 31, a volunteer who played high school basketball in Polo, Ill.

"She's exceptional in terms of a basketball player," Humphreys said. "A lot of people try to pigeonhole her--she's good for a girl, she's good for a freshman--but she's just plain good.

"And her work ethic is extraordinary. She's a great hustler, and her defense is lights-out. She takes the ball away from some of the best players in the country."

The Warriors' roster includes Bobby Finn, a Wheaton Warrenville South junior, as well as high school students from Joliet, DeKalb, West Chicago and a Glen Ellyn junior high school.

Culp is the only girl and second-youngest player on the team. "We've had a really interesting season," she said. "We've had some troubles, we've had some chemistry issues, and then there's the boys vs. me, but we're working through them."

Wheelchair basketball is a full-court game, baskets remain 10-feet high, and there are only slight rule modifications. "There's no double dribble, there's four seconds in the lane and a 35-second shot clock," Culp said. "It's so similar to able-bodied basketball."

Culp generally restricts her wheelchair use to basketball. She otherwise uses a prosthesis to walk and manage a normal day at school, where she takes honors classes and posted a 5.28 first semester grade-point average on a 5.0 scale.

She is in good health and said the odds of cancer recurring are remote.

"I'm cancer-free," Culp said. "I'm done with that. Not even a cold."

Culp was recently selected as an alternate for the United States women's wheelchair team for this summer's Paralympics Games in Athens.

"Technically I'm on the team, but I probably won't go," she said. "But there are five or six camps that I might get to go to."

There will likely be other opportunities for Culp to play for the U.S. as well as the chance to play wheelchair basketball in college.

"Basketball is something she wants to pursue well into the future," Humphreys said. "There's a long road ahead for her."