BALTIMORE, MD -- Baltimore's 15th-ranked Charm City Roller Girls and Denver's 13th-ranked Rocky Mountain Roller Girls had an epic back-and-forth confrontation on Saturday night, with an especially heated second half that featured four lead changes before the Charm City girls finally managed to seal the deal in the last five minutes, defeating Rocky Mountain 115-97.

Things got off on the wrong foot for home Baltimore, as their leadoff jammer Stormin' Mormon picked up a cutting-track major on her opening pass and found herself entering the penalty box before a minute had even gone by in the bout. That allowed opposing jammer Frida Beater to get 5 points and call off the jam with Stormin' still in the box. On the following jam, She Who Cannot Be Named, on the jammer line for Rocky Mountain, added a 3-1 on Stormin', making it Rocky Mountain 8, Charm City 1 after two jams. But Charm City found their footing soon afterwards, picking up lead jammer on the next five jams in a row and winning them all to establish a 29-12 lead about 12 minutes into the bout.

That 17 point lead would be the largest Charm City would enjoy until the very end of the game, though. Rocky Mountain turned the tables on Charm in the next series of five jams, getting lead on four out of five and outscoring the home team 16-7 to make it a considerably closer bout at 36-28 with about 10 minutes to play in the half. On the period's second to last jam, Charm City's Lady Quebeaum entered the penalty box early in the frame and She Who Cannot Be Named pulled down Rocky Mountain's biggest jam of the half with a 9-0 that made the score Charm City 44, Rocky Mountain 41. With the 50 seconds of the last jam not quite enough for either Quebeaum or Frida Beater to score points, the score remained at 44-41 going into the half.

The second half was when the fireworks really started flying, though. After the teams traded wins in the first two jams, Charm City got an unwelcome flashback to the bout's first jam when Stormin' Mormon again went to the box for a cutting-track major during her opening pass -- and once again Frida Beater capitalized, this time with a 10-0 that put Rocky Mountain in front for the first time in about 30 minutes, 63-59. Two jams later, though, it was Flo Shizzle igniting the crowd by taking advantage of She Who entering the box early in the jam, dropping a 10-1 score that put Charm City back in front, 72-68.

That wasn't it for the pendulum swings. Just one jam after that, a fresh She Who got out of the box and grabbed the momentum right back with a 5-0 over Stormin' Mormon that got Rocky Mountain the narrowest of leads at 73-72. And two jams after that, Lady Quebeaum put down a textbook 4-0 on She Who that gave Charm City the advantage yet again, making it Charm City 79, Rocky Mountain 76 with about 15 minutes left to play.

A couple of jams later, Lady Quebeaum was back to set in motion the events of a contentious final ten minutes of play by getting a crowd-pleasing 10-0 jam over She Who, who pulled her fourth minor trying to complete her opening pass. With the score 89-76, time ticking away and the always dangerous Joy Collision starting her first jam of the half on the line unopposed, the hometown crowd was clearly looking for the knockout blow -- but instead, Joy was sent to the penalty box upon initially breaking the pack on a cutting-track major penalty, a call with which both the audience and Charm City bench vociferously and lengthily disagreed.

With that jam ending immediately due to no jammers on the track, it set up a brutal battle between jammers Coach Ballbricker for Charm City and Madam Maimya for Rocky Mountain, in which both jammers were relentlessly pummeled for nearly the whole two minutes before Ballbricker finally got lead and mercifully called it off at 0-0. But on the next jam, Rocky Mountain lit up the scoreboard with their biggest jam of the night, as Frida Beater lapped Flo Shizzle twice in the course of a 13-4 run. That pulled Rocky Mountain to within just four points at 93-89, but there'd be a lengthy official challenge as Rocky Mountain's bench protested that the jam score should have put them in the lead. The score would stand after a review.

Rocky Mountain had been running a jammer rotation that was nearly exclusively She Who and Frida Beater through the half, but they turned to Winona Fighter to go up against Joy Collision on what would prove to be the game-sealing jam for Charm City. Winona went to the box mid-jam, and Joy Collision piled up three scoring laps to get the biggest jam margin of the bout right when Charm City needed it the most, claiming a 13-0 win that all but put the game out of reach at Charm City 106, Rocky Mountain 89 with only three minutes left to play. Flo Shizzle would tack one more onto Charm City's victory margin with a 9-8 full-length win over the recently penalized Winona, and the bout would conclude with a truncated scoreless jam, leaving Charm City with an extremely hard-fought 115-97 victory.

Stats

With Charm City down two of their primary jammers for the game, Flo Shizzle was given the jammer star slightly more often than usual and rose to the occasion, scoring a season-high 51 points on 10 jams and outscoring her opposing jammers by 13 points. Joy Collision had the best jammer point differential for the home team with a +14; she was responsible for 19 points on 6 jams, and Lady Quebeaum was right behind her with 18 points on 5 jams and a +9 differential. Quebeaum held the crown for lead jammer percentage, pulling lead of 3 of 5 tries for 60%. Jamming for Charm City was rounded out by Duchess of Torque (5 jams, 14 points, even JPD), Stormin' Mormon (6 jams, 9 points, -8 JPD) and Coach Ballbricker (1 jam, 0 points, even JPD.)

For Rocky Mountain, Frida Beater was extraordinarily effective from the jam line, getting 44 points on 12 jams -- while it wasn't a higher total than Flo's, she had the more important stat with a game-leading +20 jammer point differential. She Who Cannot Be Named also went to the jammer line 12 times for Rocky Mountain, getting 30 points and a -12 JPD. The few remaining jams were scattered amongst Winona Fighter (3 jams, 12 points, -12 JPD), Ida Hustler (1 jam, 4 points, +1 JPD), Luscious Smacksome (2 jams, 4 points, even JPD), Madam MaimYa (2 jams, 3 points, -5 JPD) and Smashbox (1 jam, 0 points, -9 JPD.)

Both teams broke the century mark in penalties, with Rocky Mountain accruing 112 minors and 7 majors while Charm City was hit with 105 minors and 10 majors. Charm City won the lead jammer battle handily, taking it on 17 out of 33 jams while Rocky Mountain got it on 10 -- this proved to be a crucial factor in the second half, as Rocky Mountain did not pull a LJ call for nearly the last 23 minutes of the bout.

Rocky Mountain is next in all-star action at home against 14th-ranked Providence on May 3. Charm City takes a short break from interleague play as they move to Baltimore's Du Burns Arena for their home season, beginning May 3rd. They'll be in action as an all-star team at Philly's East Coast Extravaganza, taking on 20th-ranked Houston on Saturday, June 21 and Providence on Sunday, June 22.

Additional reporting: Johnny Zebra

Photography: Eric Petersen