BALTIMORE, MD -- In their first all-star bout at Baltimore's DuBurns Arena, #11 Charm City delivered a standout defensive first-half performance on their way to sending the visiting Carolina Bootleggers to a lopsided defeat, 131-55. While it wasn't Carolina's sanctioned all-star roster and therefore not a game for WFTDA rankings, the visitors' crew was comprised of approximately half Carolina all-stars and half home-team talents.

View the box score from this bout!

Charm City was in control of the bout from the first jam, when leadoff jammer Flo Shizzle took advantage of her defense shutting down Princess America long enough for her to pick up lead jammer a lap point in a 9-0 win. A vociferous home crowd got to cheer their approval as the next two jams went similarly -- 4-0 over Duchess of Torque over DVS, and then a 5-0 for Psycho78 over a locked-down MC Fyte -- and after the opening three frames, Charm City was sitting on a 18-0 lead.

Carolina's all-stars have a reputation for feeling out their opponents in the opening jams of their bouts, and for the next few sets, it looked like the Bootleggers would follow suit, as they pulled lead for 4 out of the following 5 jams. Bootlegger jammer Deviled Leggs got a big opportunity when Radar Love headed to the box early in jam 4 -- although she could only get a single scoring pass out of it for a 5-0, it got her team on the board for the first time at 18-5.

Bootlegger Minnie Mauser tied Flo Shizzle with 3 points on the fifth jam, and then Charm City's Duchess of Torque, jamming with lead, got hit with a cutting-track major during her first scoring pass of the sixth jam ... but Charm City's defense was up to the task, killing the majority of Duchess' penalty by shutting out Princess America. However, Duchess was still in the box to begin the next jam, and the Bootleggers' Celia Fate capitalized on that for a 6-1 win that brought the visitors to within 11 points at 25-14.

A narrow 2-0 win for lead jammer Princess America over Psycho78 inched the Bootleggers to within striking distance at Charm City 25, Bootleggers 16 with 14:40 left in the first half, but Charm City definitively took over the bout at that point.

Carolina would not be able to put another point on the board before halftime, as Charm City's defense both sped up and tightened up -- and as importantly, got their jammers lead for seven jams in a row. The next three jams resulted in a fusillade of points for Charm City, as Radar Love took a quick 4-0 over DVS, Flo Shizzle had a big 11-0 over MC Fyte, and Lady Quebeaum got a 5-0 over Deviled Leggs.

With Charm City then sitting on a 45-16 lead, they got three jams in a row to work on their penalty-killing game, as jammers Duchess of Torque and Radar Love managed to get lead on the next two jams but promptly lose it on trips to the penalty box (with Radar's penalty carrying over to the next jam.) The Bootleggers could not wedge apart the Baltimore D, though, which seemed to be running at a considerably higher RPM than their previous outings. Charm City escaped the sequence not only unscathed, but with 10 more points for Radar and only about 2 minutes left in the half.

Sitting in a 55-16 hole, the Bootleggers could have used a big last jam for some much-needed momentum, but they got the opposite as Lady Quebeaum ended the first half with Charm City's biggest jam win so far, dropping a 14-0 on DVS and leaving the score at 69-16 at intermission. The Bootleggers had only managed to score in 4 of the half's 15 jams.

After another half-opening 9-0 win for Charm City -- this time for Pistol Whip over Celia Fate -- the visitors picked it up offensively, but they couldn't do much to slow the rate at which Charm City put points on the board.

While the Bootleggers won the next three jams by a total of 8-3, their momentum got steamrolled in the form of Flo Shizzle, who got the night's biggest score -- and the night's biggest ovation -- by putting down three grand-slam laps on Pink Slip for a 15-0 win that moved the score to Charm City 96, Bootleggers 24.

It wouldn't be until the last nine minutes of the game, with Charm City threatening to make their lead triple-digits at 124-35, that the Bootleggers were able to put together a sustained run. Princess America kicked it off with the Bootleggers' best jam of the night, a 7-0 over Duchess of Torque, and the final five jams of the night would go 20-7 for the visitors from Carolina -- but by then, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Final score: Charm City 131, Carolina Bootleggers 55.

In the night's undercard bout, Charm City's B team Female Trouble played a somewhat chaotic but highly entertaining 20 minute contest against the Mason-Dixon Roller Vixens out of Hagerstown, MD, with the home team triumphing 96-31. Female Trouble's scoring was led, amusingly enough, by Bambi's Revenge and Thumper Good. Bambi put up 30 points on 3 jams -- including a 15-0 leadoff jam that mirrored her feat in Female's Trouble's Montreal bout -- while Thumper contributed 27 on just 2 jams. Mason-Dixon was led by Psychosocial (14 points on 3 jams) and Heine Queen (12 points, 3 jams.)

VIDEO: Bambi's Revenge vs. Skid Ho

Stats

Flo Shizzle had a sparkling night at the jam line, scoring more than double any other player by rolling up 54 points on 9 jams and sporting a very impressive +45 jammer point differential. Lady Quebeaum made the most of her 4 jams, getting 22 points, a +17 JPD, and pulling lead on all 4 of her turns with the star.

Along Charm's other primary jammers, Duchess of Torque collected 17 points on 8 jams with a -4 JPD, Radar Love got 14 points on 4 jams with a +5 JPD, and Psycho78 got 7 points on 4 jams with a -4 JPD.

Pinch jammers included Joy Collision, whose sole appearance on the jam line got a big pop from the crowd -- she got 8 points and a +8 JPD, while Pistol Whip did her one better on her single jam with 9 points and a +9 JPD. Rosie the Rioter also jammed once for no points and a -4 JPD.

For the Bootleggers, Princess America had the most success with 20 points on 8 jams and a -4 jammer point differential. Celia Fate took the star 4 times for 10 points and a -9 JPD; Deviled Leggs, 7 points on 5 jams, -3 JPD; MC Fyte, 6 points on 7 jams, -29 JPD, DVS, 5 points on 4 jams, -13 JPD; Pink Slip, 4 points on 3 jams, -17 JPD, and MInnie Mauser, 3 points on 1 jam, even JPD.

Lead jammer status was a major factor in allowing Charm City to string together the eight-jam mid-game shutout that decided the bout -- Charm took lead in 22 of the bout's 32 jams, while the Bootleggers took it only 10 times. Charm City did spend significantly more time in the box than the Bootleggers, as Charm City got 76 minors and 17 majors to 53 minors and 8 majors for the Bootleggers.

Both leagues' all-stars have one more bout before Eastern Regionals. Carolina's 4th-ranked all stars are next in action against the team they eliminated from the 2007 National tournament, #13 Tucson -- that game goes down at Raleigh's picturesque Dorton Arena on September 13. Charm City will pay a visit to a nearby recent WFTDA addition, the unranked DC Rollergirls, on September 27.

Photos: gCarraig (interior) and Maryland1RN (front page)