AUSTIN, TX -- In a rare Monday night bout, #15th ranked Madison has a chance to definitively reclaim their spot as one of the premier teams in derby as they take on the most established team in the sport, #5 Texas.
DNN's Leadjammer boutcast will cover the action live as it happens tonight -- 8pm EDT, 7pm CDT, 6pm MDT, 5pm PDT. This boutcast is made possible by Frozen Codebase, the video-game development house currently designing the WFTDA-licensed derby videogame.
Any serious derby fan knows the story of Texas, the sport founders who were consistently dominant in the early days of WFTDA play but have started to see much tougher competition as the younger leagues have evolved. They sat at the #1 spot in the rankings when WFTDA first released rankings in late 2006, but have been dropping very gradually since then.
They dropped to #3 after their third-place finish at the 2007 Western Regional, were edged to #4 by Carolina (by virtue of Carolina's narrow December defeat of WFTDA champs Kansas City) and then again to #5 by Gotham (after Gotham moved to #2 by dealing Texas the only lopsided defeat of their history in June, 125-65.) But they also demonstrated that they still have the talent to challenge for the #1 spot again -- they lost by a single point to Kansas City in July.
Just eight days ago, Texas took on Detroit in a heavily defensive bout that went deep into the second half before Texas finally put the Motor City girls away, 83-46.
Madison, in some respects, was to East derby as Texas was to West derby in the earlier days -- following their impressive performance in the 2006 Dust Devil, they were seeded #1 and considered the team to beat at the first Eastern Regionals in 2007 -- but after getting bounced in the first round by Windy City and losing again to then #19 Rocky Mountain, they'd fall all the way from a high of #5 to a low of #17.
This summer, though, has seen Madison turn their fortunes around -- first at ECE, where they pulverized a lowly-ranked team in #37 Fort Wayne but also came very close to shocking a top-flight team in #8 Philly. They then went on to stop #11 Charm City's six-game winning streak in a July last-jam thriller, 108-101, and have had little trouble in their three most recent bouts, thumping #31 Brewcity (by 141 points), #22 Dominion (by 68) and #43 Burning River (by 68).
Texas may not be the invincible force it originally was, but taking the founders down at home is still an achievement that many leagues dream of -- if Madison can do it, they'd make a massive statement going into the Eastern Regionals that they'll be hosting in just under a month.
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