HOUSTON, TX -- 9th seed Duke City was the only entrant to score an seeding upset in the first round of the Western Regionals, manhandling 8 seed Pikes Peak in the first half and then holding off a furious Pikes comeback to win the opening bout of the tournament, 138-99.

Pikes Peak jumped out into the lead with a 9-0 jam to start the bout, as Duke jammer Muffin went to the box on the opening pass and Pikes Peak's jammer DeRanged was fast to grab a grand slam and 4 more. On the following jam, Duke City's Kamikaze Kim chose to take a 0-0 upon getting lead against Psycho Babble, but from then, the half was almost all Duke City.

Duke's Meep Meep ran up a 15-0 against the boxed Pikes Peak jammer, and Muffin was back to atone for her previous sins with a 9-0 jam that made it 24-9 Duke City. On the next jam, Kamikaze Kim, going against Pikes Peak's Pepper Slay, set a WFTDA tournament record with a mind-blowing 25-0 jam that clearly demoralized Pikes Peak -- after going up 9-0, they'd suddenly allowed 49 unanswered points.

The pain kept coming for Pikes Peak a couple of jams later, as Muffin kicked in a 15-0 over a boxed DeRanged to move the scoreboard to Duke City 68, Pikes Peak 14 with 15:41 still to play in the first half. Though the speediest jammers from Duke City were having a huge effect on the score, a couple of the biggest elements were a duo of very dissimilar blockers bookending their pack -- Miss E Vil, bringing 6 foot 7 inches of solid pain in the back and diminutive but extremely agile pivot Death Ro frustrating jammers before they could escape the pack.

Fortunately for Pikes Peak, they finally got a big jam of their own when DeRanged turned the tables on a boxed Meep Meep and blasted to a 20-0 jam with the help of a very well-timed push assist from teammate Tara ToPieces. That made it a more reasonable 68-34, but Muffin would add another 8-0 before taking another trip to the box. That jam turned out to be an excellent demonstration of Duke City's speed-maintenance skills, though, as they pivoted very effectively from a slow pack for the originally unopposed Muffin to a very speedy one when Psycho Babble, previously boxed, got out just as Muffin got in.

With the score 76-34, Muffin's escape from the penalty box in the subsequent jam proved very shortlived, as she entered in the pack and found herself going right back to the box. That allowed Hang Em High Hellen to pick up 3 and close to 76-37.

Duke would keep control for the rest of the half, getting another big 15-0 for Tronsexual as teammates Miss E Vil and Dahmernatrix slammed PPDD jammer Rollene Thunda in the pack. They'd close with a big 101-45 lead, and from the first 30 minutes it looked like Duke had it in the bag.

Pikes Peak had other ideas, though. In the second half, they came out with a somewhat surprising strategy, with their jammers almost immediately engaging in defense off the line instead of sprinting to the pack for points. Although at first it seemed odd that Pikes would give up potential scoring time with such a strategy, it eventually became clear that what they were trying to do was force the Duke jammers out and make them ineligible for lead in hopes of getting consistent margin victories... and for a quite a while, it looked like it might work.

Pikes closed to 105-58 after the first three jams of the second half,  at which point a comical series of jammer penalties would ensue -- Amanda Jamitnya, jamming for Duke, picked up her fourth minor on the way to the pack by stepping around opposing jammer PsychoBabble. Unopposed, Psycho blasted off to rack up points -- but after picking up 7, she then headed to the box just as Amanda was released -- only to find herself getting her second major and second box trip of the jam to trigger a jammerless jam.

With the score now at 105-65, Pikes Peak continued to turn it up, effectively deploying their jammer-on-jammer defense to remove the lead jammer arrow from Duke's quiver. With just over 10 minutes to go, Pikes had made it 114-80, and in the course of three quick shutout jams, closed to Duke 114, Pikes 99 with 7 minutes to play.

Duke City closed up just as they appeared to be in free-fall, though, and did not allow another point for the rest of the bout. Their jammer Meep Meep was able to scamper for a critical, momentum-killing 14-0 with big help from Miss E. Vil laying some bruising blocks on opposing jammer Tara Topieces. As the next jam ended jammerless, there would be a crucial jam with 3:45 to play and Pikes needing all the time remaining to come back from the 128-99 hole they were in.

Death Ro, who hadn't taken the jammer star all morning, came up in the clutch against Psycho Babble, pulling an increasingly rare Duke City LJ call and more than happy to burn time off the clock with a 0-0 as Psycho passed her and frantically raced for the pack. There were only two and a half minutes left in the bout, and Meep Meep and Muffin pulled lead and killed the next two jams immediately at 0-0. Muffin added 10 points on to the final margin in the extra time, and though Duke had been outscored 54-37 in the second half, their big first-half padding was more than enough to carry them to victory. Final: Duke City 138, Pikes Peak 99.

Duke City advances to play #1 seed Kansas City at 6:15pm on Friday night.

Photo: Phil Peterson