DENVER, CO -- In a heavily defensive game, Denver's superior speed proved to not quite be enough to handle Duke City's superior blocking, and the visiting Duke City girls controlled the tempo of the game to take a bruising 72-51 win in front of 2300 fans in the first match at Denver's Fillmore Auditorium.
After falling to a 31-6 deficit in the first half, Denver managed to mount an impressive comeback that brought them to within 33-22 at the end of the first half, but Duke City reasserted control at the beginning of the second half and never let Denver close to within single digits.
Duke City's Bullet Tooth Tracy put on a seminar in pivoting all night; her blocking at the front of the pack saved numerous lead jams for her team, while Duke City veteran Amanda Jamitinya had a breakout performance at the jam line with a couple of momentum-swinging big jams.
For Denver, Sheila Tack proved to be the only jammer consistently able to evade the Duke City defense, while Boo Boo Radley and and Disco a Go-Go keyed their defensive play.
First Half
For the first 15 minutes of the bout, Denver seemed utterly stymied by the pack work from Duke City. After Duke City's leadoff jammer Muffin got lead and dropped a textbook 4-0 on Denver's Slick Vick, the opening of the second jam showed a dynamic that would repeat itself throughout the night: Denver's speedy Angela Death burst through the blockers and looked about to take lead, but Duke City pivot Bullet Tooth Tracy stopped her just in time, allowing Duke City jammer Kamikaze Kim to sneak out of the pack first with lead and another 4-0.
Duke City would take lead on the first five jams of the bout, but was content to call jams at 0-0 when looking at a disadvantageous situation, so after five jams the score was a meager Duke City 8, Denver 2. However, the sixth jam kicked off a big run for Duke City that the home team would spend the rest of the game trying to recover from.
Duke City got a break when Denver jammer Angela Death was sent to the penalty box during the jam and it appeared that the blockers thought the jam had been called -- but Duke City jammer Amanda Jamitinya didn't slow down for a second and ran up a big 11-3 total to move the score to 19-5 in favor of Duke City.
On the following jam, with Angela still in the box, an enormously split pack allowed Muffin a free pass on her opening lap on her way to a 6-0 win, and after a 1-1 tie between Kamikaze Kim and Sheila Tack, a Duke City pack of Death Ro, Dahmernatrix, Bullet Tooth Tracy and Punchkin Pie completely shut down Denver jammer Jersey Trouble, allowing Muffin to score a grand slam in the course of a 5-0.
With 14:45 remaining in the half, the scoreboard showed a 31-6 advantage for Duke City and it looked like it might turn in a surprising rout, but after a Denver timeout, the home team tightened up their game considerably, only allowing 2 more points for Duke City for the remainder of the half while slowly but surely clawing their way back into contention. Denver's jammer Reapercussion made the Fillmore's capacity audience explode by getting Denver's first lead jam of the night, and with the help of her blockers Disco a Go-Go and Fiona Grapple both decking opposing jammer Punchkin Pie, took Denver's first definitive jam win with a 4-0.
A chaotic Jam 11 saw three major rollergirl pile-ups in the opening lap that took down jammers Muffin and Slick Vick, but Slick Vick made it out with lead and Denver's Boo Boo Radley did a remarkable job of delaying Muffin's escape long enough for Vick to get a 3-0. Next, Duke City got another break when Dahmernatrix, going to the jammer line for the only time in the bout, spent a little too much time talking to her bench and didn't appear to be quite in position before the opening whistle -- but the refs let it slide and she was allowed to start the jam. There'd be no points for her, though, as opponent Sheila Tack managed to fake out the normally unflappable Bullet Tooth Tracy for lead jam and a 4-0 win.
Denver's run had made it 31-17 with about 8 minutes left in the period, but Duke City mostly regained the tempo as the half came to close. After three lead jams in a row for Duke City, the score had only inched up to 33-18. The second to last jam of the half saw some truly standout jammer-on-jammer action, as both Muffin and Angela Death burst out of the pack at about the same time, but Angela was given lead -- seeing this, Muffin got in front of her and then slammed on the brakes, making no attempt to start a scoring pass and simply slowing Angela down until the pack re-absorbed her, forcing her to call off the jam at 0-0.
Denver did take some much-needed momentum into the locker rooms, though, as it looked like an imposing wall of Dahmernatrix, Kamikaze Kim and Bullet Tooth Tracy was going to keep lead jammer Sheila Tack bottled up until time ran out in the last jam -- but with the announcers counting off the final seconds, Sheila finally squeezed by on the inside line with literally one second remaining to grab a 4-0 win that ended the half at Duke City 33, Denver 22.
Second Half
Duke City immediately rebuilt their previously dwindling lead as the second half opened. Once again, Angela Death was within a hair of snagging lead jammer only to have a kinetic confrontation with Bullet Tooth Tracy at the front of the pack; Amanda Jamitinya, jamming for Duke, traipsed past the battle to get lead and an eventual grand slam in the course of a big 8-0 win.
The second jam of the half turned to to be rather confusing, as Reapercussion got a big blast from the crowd for winning lead jammer over Punchkin Pie -- but as Reaper was catching up to the pack, she was waved off to the penalty box before getting in scoring position. Opposing jammer Punchkin Pie scored 3 points before re-aggravating an ankle injury, and then removed herself from play -- leaving no jammers on the track, but also not triggering a jammerless-jam situation. There would be a lengthy referee conference to sort that issue out before the officials decided to start an entirely new jam, which went 1-0 for Amanda Jamitinya (with the ubiquitous Bullet Tooth Tracy yet again denying a Denver jammer, this time Disco-A-Go-Go, escape from the pack.)
Duke City had built a 45-22 lead at this point, but Denver ate into it a little over the next couple of jams. First, Duke City jammer Muffin went into the penalty box at the very end of a 3-0 win for Denver's Slick Vick, giving Angela Death a big opportunity to start unopposed on the next jam. Duke City's pack was up to the challenge, though, with Dahmernatrix, Miss L. Command, Cabbage Snatch Kid and (of course) Bullet Tooth Tracy managing to hold Angela to only 3 points before Muffin got back out and caused Angela to immediately call the jam.
On the next jam, Muffin was back on the jam line -- apparently well-rested from the time in the box -- to go against Jersey Trouble, and it would turn out to be a mirror image of her late first-half jam against Angela Death -- while Jersey Trouble got lead, Muffin just caught up to her before the scoring lap and slowed her to a crawl, garnering some lusty boos from the Denver audience but forcing a frustrated Jersey to finally call it at 0-0. The crowd would get a chance for a big cheer on the following jam, though, as Sheila Tack nearly fell while trying to break the pack but instead managed to turn her fall into a dramatic shirt whip off of Boo Boo Radley that catapulted her into lead jammer status. Four unanswered points later, Denver was just one big jam away at 45-32, with 17:30 left to play.
The teams kept the status quo with a 4-4 tie between Muffin and Angela Death, but Duke City picked up 11 points over the next couple of jams as Jersey Trouble went to the penalty box during her first pass. Amanda Jamitinya picked up 6, Kamikaze Kim added 5 on the next jam while Jersey finished out her penalty, and Denver was on the ropes with the score Duke City 60, Denver 36 and about ten minutes left in the bout.
An apparent strategic error on Denver's part then cost them a chance to cut into the lead -- while Sheila Tack had a full-lap advantage over Amanda Jamitinya and got a lap point on her, she called the jam after one scoring pass while Amanda was still trying to finish her opening pass. While it moved the score to 60-39, Denver was running out of time to narrow the gap, and the next jam would prove to be the knockout blow.
Muffin, jamming with lead for Duke City, took a gamble after finishing her first scoring pass with 4 points -- opponent Reapercussion was about a half-lap behind, and Muffin chose to gun it and go for a second pass rather than take the 4-0. With Dahmernatrix and Cabbage Snatch Kid punishing Reaper in her pass, the gamble paid off -- Muffin finished her second pass to get the grand slam and a 9-2 win that put the score at 69-41 with seven minutes left in the bout. While Denver managed to shave a few points off the margin, the bout had been essentially decided there. Five jams later, Duke City had the win, 72-51.
Stats
Duke City relied almost entirely on a three-jammer rotation throughout the bout. Muffin yet again led her team with 29 points on 12 jams and a +11 jammer point differential, though Amanda Jamitinya was narrowly behind with 27 points on 11 jams and a +9 differential.
Kamikaze Kim contributed 14 points on 8 jams with a +6 differential, but her standout stat was getting lead jammer on all but one of her jams. Punchkin Pie scored 3 points on 2 jams with a -1 differential (and left the game on the second half's second jam), and Dahmernatrix jammed once for no points and a -4 differential.
Sheila Tack was far and away Denver's most effective jammer, scoring just over half her team's points by putting up 26 points on 10 jams with a sparkling +22 jammer point differential.
Angela Death had 10 points on 8 jams with a -23 differential, Slick Vick had 6 points on 5 jams with a +2 JPD, Reapercussion put in 6 points on 3 jams with a -6 JPD, Disco A GoGo collected 3 points on 2 jams with a +2 JPD, and Jersey Trouble had a tough night with no points on 6 jams and a -18 differential.
Both teams are next in action with away games on May 31. Duke City is next up against 21st-ranked Dallas, while Denver faces off against 17th-ranked Madison.
