KALAMAZOO, MI -- The Killamazoo Derby Darlins of Kalamazoo, Michigan, rolled to another victory on August 30, this time by 93-65 over the Hammer City Roller Girls from Hamilton, Ontario. This was the first international roller derby match in the state of Michigan, though it was not a WFTDA game. Killamazoo’s Javelin was game MVP for the 2nd game in a row as she dished out 18 blocks, 12 assists, 4 knockdowns and 7 points. Javelin was also an overall plus 38 in plus/minus.

Killamazoo started off fast, leading 28-0 after 4 jams. It was 46-3 after 10 jams, and the 1st period ended with Kzoo leading 61-16. Hammer City did get some satisfaction by winning the 2nd period by a 49-32 score and that did make the final score more respectable. In the end, Hammer City could not stack up against the physicality of Kzoo’s Javelin and Letha Venom, in particular. That duo dominated the blocking throughout the game.

1st Half

MP3: Interview with Killamazoo coach / Grand Raggidy skater Terror Hawk (1:57)

To open the game, Hammer City rolled out Miss Carriage at pivot, Eduskating Rita, Bitchslap Barbie, and Judge Jodie at blockers, and Carla Coma at jammer. Killamazoo countered with pivot Battleaxe, blockers Noam Stompsky, Ka-Powski, and Javelin, and wearing the star was team captain Lily St. Smear. Carla quickly earned lead jammer, but had to just as quickly call off the jam when she was passed by Lily who won the jam 1-0 for Kzoo.

Though it wasn't obvious at the time, Kzoo sealed the victory on jams 2 through 4 -- they upped their lead to 28 points, which would turn out to be the ultimate margin of victory. Kzoo’s asscap Lady Hawk pulled off a double grand slam in jam 2 to win the jam 10-0. That was followed in jam 3 by Kzoo’s Charisnakov’s 12-0 jam with a single grand slam. Then Lily St. Smear came out in jam 5 and won it 5-0 with a slam. Hammer City’s coach Paul Bearer did call a time out after the 2nd jam, but his team was still apparently getting used to skating on the painted concrete floor at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo. Kzoo’s jammers each had the lead in jams 2-4, and Hammer City was still being blanked at 28-0.

Starting with jam 5, Hammer City managed to pull lead jammer four times in a row, but consistently failed to capitalize. After a scoreless jam 5, HC’s captain Perky Set got lead jammer, then got hung up in the back of the pack on her scoring pass. That allowed Kzoo’s Charisnakov to sneak by and start scoring. By the time Perky was able to call the jam, Charisnakov had won it 4-1. Carla Coma got another lead jammer for HC in jam 7, but then was sent off to the penalty box. That gave Lily St. Smear the opportunity to ring up another grand slam for Kzoo. Carla was able to get a single point when she got back on the track, but Kzoo won the jam 5-1. It was 37-2 for Kzoo at that time, and both teams seemed sort of stunned by the early big lead for Kzoo. The first half of the period featured fairly slow packs, and lots of hard hitting going both ways.

It wasn't until jam 11 that Hammer City got a definitive jam win, as Hammer City’s Carla Coma took advantage of Kzoo starting with two blockers in the penalty box to get a 4-0. Only two more jams would go for Hammer City in the half, though, and both by small margins, leaving Killamazoo up 61-16 at intermission.

Surprisingly, lead jammer status was evenly split --- of the half’s 18 jams, each team took lead 9 times. At the half, KZ’s Charisnakov had a game high 34 points. Javelin was also well on her way to her MVP of the game as she had 12 blocks, 7 assists, and 4 knockdowns at the half. Killamazoo was winning most of the blocking matchups, and was doing a good job of containing HC’s jammers in the pack. Several times when HC had lead jammer, their jammer came around and simply could not pass any blockers for points. Hammer City’s blockers weren’t organized enough to attack Kzoo’s blocking walls in the half.

2nd Half

MP3: Interview with Hammer City skaters Carla Coma & Judge Jodie (1:46)

The 2nd half opened with Charisnakov up against Carla Coma, and the jam was a 4-4 draw. Jam 2 changed quickly, as HC’s Perky Set quickly grabbed lead jammer when Kzoo’s jammer Letha Venom was stuck in the pack and having particular trouble with HC blocker Dicey -- but then Perky got sent to the box, and Letha eventually got free and scored a 10-0 double grand slam victory.  The margin was at a game-high 55 points for Kzoo at 75-20.

Things began to look up a bit for Hammer City at this point, though. Jam 3 was called off after only 20 seconds of play, ending with both jammers in the box. Kzoo selected Lady Hawk for jam 4, but it was HC’s jammer choice of Miss Carriage who won a 5-0 grand slam win. That was Miss Carriage’s first time jamming on the evening. After all that, it was still a 75-25 lead for host Killamazoo.

Jam 5 was scoreless, and jam 6 found Killmazoo's Kitty City on the jammer line for the first time -- unfortunately for Kitty, it was HC’s Carla Coma who won the jam 4-0. Killamazoo shot themselves in the skate in jam 7. They accidentally started one blocker short, not knowing how many skaters were in the penalty box. Then their jammer Lady Hawk broke the pack first, but instead of getting lead jammer she was sent off to the penalty box for cutting the track. HC’s Perky Set then went on to a 5-0 grand slam jam win, making the score a bit more respectable at 78-36 for Killamazoo.

Hammer City had shutout Kzoo in 5 straight jams, but KZ’s Charisnakov ended that with a narrow 3-2 over Carla Coma. Javelin then came out to jam for the first time in the game in jam 9, and she raced to a 4-0 jam win for Kzoo. HC managed to again shutout Kzoo in jams 10 and 11, although HC could only manage to put up a 3 spot by Perky Set in jam 11.

Hammer City continued to try to make a game of it, shutting down the Derby Darlins offense in jams 13-15 and moving the score 86-49 with about 5 minutes to play. It was about this time the home fans started cheering for Killamazoo to hit the century mark, but it was the Hammer City girls who lit up the scoreboard in the final couple of jams with a 7-0 for Carla Coma and and 4-0 for Cut Off as the half -- and bout --- ended.

Hammer City did earn some respect as they won the 2nd half by a 49-32 score, although they couldn’t overcome their 45 point deficit at the half. The Hammer City blockers did a better job in the 2nd half, holding Kzoo scoreless in 12 of the period’s 19 jams. Hammer City also had an 11-5 edge in lead jammers in the 2nd half. In Killamazoo’s defense, they did break up their 1st half jammer combo of Charisnakov, Lady Hawk, and Lily St. Smear in favor of skating some other jammers in the 2nd half, apparently looking to spread out some bout experience.

Afterthoughts

Add this game as another of those games where the visiting team gets off to a too-cold start, only to play respectably the rest of the way. If you were to take away the first four jams of the game where Killamazoo roared out to a 28 point lead, the rest of the game was dead even. It sometimes seems that the differences in various skating surfaces can make too much of a difference in games as perhaps some teams are not used to skating on things like painted concrete.

This game also saw each team suffer a bit of confusion as to how many skaters they had in the penalty boxes, and each team accidentally skated short a blocker in a jam because they couldn’t determine who/how many was/were in the box. In Kzoo’s games at Wings Stadium, the players’ benches are folding chairs set up just inside the hockey boards. The penalty boxes are across on the other side of the track. When players are sitting down inside the hockey penalty boxes they are behind the hockey boards and are hard to see from the players’ benches. It is particularly hard to see if a skater in the box is wearing the jammer’s star helmet cover. Making it even harder to see the penalty boxes, the penalty stats folks have two easels with whiteboards set up in the infield of the track so each team can see how many penalties their individual skaters have, and those whiteboards are somewhat in the line-of-sight between the player and penalty benches.

According to Paul Bearer and Scott Ho’fficial from Hammer City before the game, they were saying they use “flags” at their games. The flags are flipped over the boards from inside the penalty box to show how many skaters are in each box. Those flags also have a stripe or a star on particular flags to make it easier for the coaches to see if they have a pivot or jammer in the penalty box, as well as determining just how many players are in the box itself. That, of course, assumes the penalty box staff would stay on top of things to flip the flags back and forth as needed for an accurate display at all times.

Stats

Leading all scorers in the game was Killamazoo’s Charisnakov. She scored 49 points while jamming 12 times with 9 leads and 2 grand slams. Other Kzoo jammers: Lady Hawk (14 points, 9 jams, 1 lead, 2 slams); Lily St. Smear (13 pts, 7 jams, 2 leads, 2 slams); Letha Venom (10 pts, 1 jam, 2 slams); Javelin (7 pts, 3 jams, 2 leads); Delilah Danger (0 pts, 2 jams); Kitty Cat (0 pts, 2 jams).

Hammer City’s scoring was led by Carla Coma, who scored a fine 37 points in 16 jams with 9 leads and 1 grand slam. She scored 23 of her points in the 2nd half. other HC jammers: Perky Set (14 points, 9 jams, 6 leads, 1 slam); Miss Carriage (10 pts, 2 jams, 1 lead, 2 slams); Cut Off (4 pts, 9 jams, 3 leads); Bitchslap Barbie (0 pts, 1 jam, 1 lead).

We mentioned Javelin’s fine defensive effort above (18 blocks, 12 assists, 4 knockdowns). Javelin was also an overall plus 38 in plus/minus. Other standout blockers for Kzoo were Letha Venom (12 blocks); Ka-Powski, Battleaxe and Delilah Danger each had 9 blocks. Noam Stompsky chipped in with 7 blocks.

Hammer City was led defensively by Bitchslap Barbie with 10 blocks, 7 assists, and a knockdown. Dicey had 8 blocks and 8 assists. Tori Nado had only 2 blocks but 8 assists. Eduskating Rita had 5 blocks and 7 assists. Not showing up well in the stats was Miss Carriage, although it seemed to me she was in the thick of the blocking in the packs.

In the plus/minus ratings, besides Javelin as noted above, Kzoo’s Charisnakov was a +25 overall, followed by Battleaxe and Noam Stompsky at +20. Letha Venom was a +15, the Organ Grinder +14, and Delilah Danger +13. Although they lost by 28 points, Hammer City was led by Bitchslap Barbie with a +8, followed by Carla Coma and Miss Carriage at +6. Judge Jodie was an overall +/- of zero while skating in 19 jams, not too bad in a loss.

Future

Killamazoo loses the use of Wings Stadium as it reverts to its home for an ice hockey team and the ice goes in. That means Kzoo will take their game on the road, playing away versus the Chicago Outfit on Saturday, September 13.

Hammer City’s travel team next takes to the track at the Ft. Wayne, Indiana, “Fall Brawl” tournament on Saturday, September 20, although they are sending a “B-team” to play at Northeast Ohio on Saturday, September 13.

Photos: Colin J.