Harm City Rolls Over Connecticut, 145-29

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Wed Jan 28 2009 5:47pm

BALTIMORE, MD -- The Harm City Homicide dominated the Connecticut Death Quads in the first 40-minute meeting between the two teams, leaping out to a 43-5 lead after just three jams and coasting through for a decisive 145-29 victory.

See the box score from this bout.

While the two teams had met before in a 20-minute expo in October, the Death Quads had brought a very short roster of 5 players and had their bench coach, Girl Fawkes of Connecticut Rollergirls, fill as a sixth to take on an 11-man roster for Homicide. That game went 72-23 for Homicide, but this time the Death Quads had the numbers advantage, skating 10 players to 9 for the Homicide.

However, the outcome would be even more in Baltimore's favor this time, as their offense provided almost identical per-half totals while their defense improved to allow only 6 more points in a contest twice as long.

Homicide took a new strategic tack in this bout, mostly running a two-jammer rotation of Justice Feelgood Marshall and Carnage Asada with occasional support jams from Virginia Slim and Hung Solo. They established control of this bout early, getting their best run of jams on the opening three frames.

After leadoff Homicide jammer Justice Feelgood Marshall took lead jammer and lapped Pastor of Muppets in the course of a 9-0 first jam, the Homicide caught a break when the Death Quads' Cirkle Jerk pulled the next lead jammer but went to the penalty box before he was able to call it off, allowing Carnage Asada to win that jam 14-5.

The third jam would be the early backbreaker, though, as Johnny Holeshot, jamming for CTDQ, also visited the the penalty box, and Justice Feelgood Marshall was able to complete a 20-0 run just as time expired in the jam, putting the home team up 43-5.

CTDQ got things under control in the following three jams, which went 4-0 CTDQ, 1-1 and then 5-4 for Homicide, but there'd be another huge jam for Homicide on the bout's 7th jam, which was a jammerless jam reset that found blockers Sin Diesel (for Homicide) and B-Raddd (for the Death Quads) going at it with the jam stars. Yet another major penalty on the Death Quads jammer allowed Sin to roll for three scoring passes in the course of a 13-0, putting the game nearly out of reach just 10 minutes in at 62-14.

There was only one more point in the remaining six jams of the half for the Death Quads (in a 1-0 for Johnny Holeshot over Hung Solo), and the first 20 minutes closed with the Homicide sitting on a fat 79-15 lead.

Homicide opened the second half with another flurry of points, going 4-0, 13-0 and 3-0 to stretch the lead to 99-15. In this half, Homicide was having particular success  exploiting CTDQ jammer penalties by swarming a single Connecticut player and slowing the pack to a crawl to maximize their scoring opportunity, and it would especially pay off in a couple of late-game jams. Pastor of Muppets took a jammer penalty that spanned two jams, and Homicide capitalized to get Hung Solo a 11-3 jam followed by a 15-0 for Carnage Asada. That moved the total to 143-26, and the lopsided contest was over three jams later at a final score of 145-29.

Stats

Carnage Asada led the Homicide in points in his debut as a primary jammer, putting up 50 points on 9 jams, pulling lead 5 times and outscoring his opposing jammers by 33 points. Justice Feelgood Marshall was only a hair behind, with 49 points on 9 jams, 6 lead jammer calls, and a point differential of +44 points.

Support came from Virginia Slim (4 jams, 22 points, 3 lead jams, +19 JPD), Sin Diesel (13 points on a single jam, 1 lead jam, and a +13 JPD), and Hung Solo (3 jams, 11 points, no lead jams, +7 JPD.)

For the visiting Death Quads, it was Cirkle Jerk leading scoring with 9 points on 4 jams, 1 lead jam call and a -16 JPD. Johnny Holeshot was held to 8 points on 6 jams with a -21 JPD and 2 lead jams, while Pastor of Muppets also got 8 points on 7 jams and was outscored by 40 points.

Sergeant Major got 4 points on 5 jams with a -21 JPD, and pulled lead once, The Rev (guest skating on loan from Pioneer Valley Roller Derby) was shut out on 2 jams, but pulled lead both times and so was only outscored by 2 points. Jamming was rounded out by B-Radd, who was shut out on 2 jams and outscored by 16 points.

Minor penalty totals were about even for both teams, with 40 minors for the Homicide and 42 for the Death Quads, but the Death Quads were called for significantly more majors -- 15 against just 6 for Homicide. That resulted in a lopsided penalty time advantage for Homicide, who served a total of 12 minutes in the box while the Death Quads served 21 minutes.

Sin Diesel was the most penalized blocker for Homicide with 8 minors and 2 majors, while Cirkle Jerk and B-Radd both had 6 minors and 3 majors (B-Radd, getting all three of his majors in the second half, would foul out of the half with about 3 minutes to play.)

Additional reporting: Lois Angle
Photos: lizzardsdad