BALTIMORE, MD -- The Mobtown Mods, though trailing 33-27 at halftime, put together a spectacular second-half defensive performance in their championship bout with the Junkyard Dolls, holding the Dolls to only 12 points in the second half -- and holding them scoreless on 8 of the bout's last 9 jams -- to complete an undefeated season and claim their first CCRG championship, 55-45.

See the box score for this bout here.

The Mods had some trouble getting their offense going in the first half. While the bout started with a 4-1 for Mod Thumper Good over Dolls captain Dolly Rocket, the next four jams would be a low-scoring clinch, as the Dolls repeatedly got lead jammer and shut out the Mods but could not put up any significant scores of their own, leaving the score at Dolls 5, Mods 4 after five jams.

With 12:23 left to play in the first, though, the Mods' Joy Collision had a trademark explosive turn with the jammer star, dropping a 13-0 on Ella Fitzperil that would be the only double-digit jam score for either team over the course of the highly defensive game. Though it got the Mods fans fired up by changing the score to Mods 17, Dolls 5, the Mods' defense was still having consistent trouble keeping the Dolls from obtaining lead jammer status, and it'd be reflected on the scoreboard through the last ten minutes of the half.

After Joy's 13-0 jam, the Dolls claimed lead on the next six jams in a row, going on a 24-4 run and taking the lead back with 3:08 left in the half as the Dolls' Killer Kitten went 9-0 over Duchess of Torque to make the score Dolls 29, Mods 21. Though Mod jammers Thumper Good and Duchess of Torque both took lead and put up 3 points each in the final two jams of the half, the Dolls were enjoying a 33-27 advantage at the half.

With the championship on the line as the last 20 minutes started, both teams began to rely more heavily on their core personnel. It looked for the first few jams of the half that the Dolls might manage to pull away, as they shut out the Mods on the opening four jams while managing to add 6 more points to their total -- that gave the Dolls their biggest lead of the bout at 12 points, 39-27 with 13:20 to play in the season.

But after a high-speed, crowd-pleasing 3-3 draw between Joy Collision and Dolly Rocket at the jam line that moved the score to 42-30, the Mods defense entered a lockdown mode -- and as important, got tremendous performances at the jammer position from Thumper Good and Duchess of Torque, who went one-on-one-off for 8 jams in a row and got six critical lead jammer calls in a row.

The Mods finally regained the lead with about 6:24 to play, as Thumper claimed a 5-0 grand slam over Ella-Fitzperil that put the Mods up by a single point, 43-42. The Dolls' Flo Shizzle was the only Doll jammer to put up any points in the final 10 minutes of the bout, but she could only get 3 to Thumper's 4 with about 4:07 left on the clock, putting the score at 51-45 for the Mods.

Still, though, with the deficit only 6 points and enough time for a few more jams, the Dolls weren't quite done -- but suffered a serious setback when their jammer Killer Kitten hit the penalty box on the following jam. Lead jammer for the Mods, Duchess of Torque, called it off early -- and on the next jam, when Kitten came out of the box to go against Thumper Good, both jammers would find themselves off to the box with under a minute left to play.

With the score now 55-45 for the Mods and 18 seconds left to play, the Dolls needed to secure lead jammer on the jammerless jam reset, as Coach Ballbricker took the star for the Dolls against Ang Thrax for the Mods. Although it was Ang through first and quickly for lead jammer, Ang immediately called off the jam as soon as she was declared lead, with 4 seconds still remaining on the clock.

Luckily for the Mods, the Dolls weren't quite quick enough on the trigger to call their final timeout and get a final jam in -- and the Mods bench explosively celebrated their complete turnaround from 2007.

Stats

Thumper Good led the Mods with 19 points on 9 jams, posting a jammer point differential of +11 and pulling lead an impressive 7 times. Joy Collision was right behind her with 16 points on 5 jams and a slightly higher JPD of +13 .

Duchess of Torque took the jam star most often, going 11 times and tying Joy Collision with 16 points but getting outscored by 11 points; Lady Quebeaum went twice for 4 points and a -3 differential. Ang Thrax took the star only once and got zero points, but did pull the critical lead jammer call that sealed the Mods win.

For the Dolls, the speedy Killer Kitten was both the most used and most effective jammer, going 10 times for 23 points and a +9 differential, along with 7 lead jammer calls (although she did find herself ejected on 4 box trips on the game's penultimate jam.) Dolly Rocket took the star 5 times and picked up 12 points with a +5 JPD and 3 lead jammer calls.

As happened in the first Dolls / Mods meeting, Flo Shizzle had particular trouble solving the Mod defense in general and Joy Collision as a blocker specifically -- Flo took the star 8 times for 6 points and was outscored by 10 points, though she did get 3 lead jammer calls. Ella Fitzperil jammed 3 times for 4 points and was outscored by 14 points with no lead jammer calls, and Coach Ballbricker jammed twice for no points and one lead jammer call.

The Mods end the season 5-0, and the Dolls end it 3-2 with their only losses being to the Mods.

Photos: Craig Lammes Photography