Harm City Defeats Pioneer Valley With Late Comeback, 77-60

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Thu Aug 20 2009 3:47pm

HAGERSTOWN, MD -- In yet another closely-matched nailbiter of a contest between two of the oldest teams in the relatively new field of men's flat-track derby, Baltimore's Harm City Homicide trailed Northhampton, Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley Dirty Dozen for most of the bout but finished with a 27-1 run that lifted them to their first victory in three attempts over their longtime rivals.

See the box score from this bout here.

PVRD entered the bout with a bit of a surprise handicap, as they were missing two of their originally rostered players in Jurasskick Park and Fresh Eddie Fresh -- in addition to depriving them of one of their best jammers, it also brought their gametime roster down to just 8 against 10 for the Homicide, and by the end of the bout endurance would become a factor.

First Half

Momentum swung wildly as the game got underway, as things kicked off with PVRD's Davy Jones lapping Justice Feelgood Marshall for a 5-0, but Homicide answered by pulling three lead jam calls in a row and riding them to small shutout wins that made the score Homicide 9, Dirty Dozen 5 after 4 jams.

The Dirty Dozen had their best run of the whole bout right then, putting the Homicide in danger of falling into a big early hole. They'd take five lead jammer calls in a row. After two they'd narrowed the gap to 12-9 for the Homicide, and then a jammer penalty on Homicide's Deutsch Bag spanned two jams and allowed Bazooka Joe to take 10-0 followed up by a 5-0 for Davey Jones. After Dr. Spankenstein kept the PVRD momentum going with a 4-2 over Gearhead, the Dirty Dozen held a 14 point lead at 28-14 and seemed to be in early control.

That 14 point lead, though, would prove to be the largest PVRD would be able to get -- though it was some time before Homicide was able to fully erase it. Justice Feelgood Marshall got a timely 9-0 to close the gap to Dirty Dozen 28, Homicide 23, and the margin stayed more or less the same for the remainder of a half that would close at Dirty Dozen 39, Homicide 32.

Second Half

In the second half, PVRD opened with small back to back wins -- 3-1 and 4-0 -- that got the Dirty Dozen lead back up close to its largest spread, 13 points at 46-33. But the Homicide comeback started in earnest here, with five narrow jam wins in a row for the boys in blue -- 5-0, 4-3, 3-0, 3-2 and 2-0 -- that whittled the Dirty Dozen lead all the way down to 1 point at 51-50 with about 12 minutes to go.

Just when it seemed that Homicide was going to take back the lead, though, they ended up on the wrong side of another power play when Deutsch Bag went to the penalty box and Dr. Spankenstein responded with an 8-0 to open up the Dirty Dozen lead to 59-50. D-Bag got redemption on the very next jam, though, when it was PVRD's Davy Jones hitting the box as a jammer and allowing Deutsch Bag to run up a 9-0 that tied the game at 59, inspired a Pioneer Valley timeout and got the small but raucous crowd behind the home Homicide.

With the game on the line and about 8 minutes left to play, both teams would go to their primary jammers for the rest of the bout, resulting in the last seven jams being either Justice Feelgood Marshall vs. Dr. Spankenstein or Virginia Slim vs. Davy Jones. For 4 jams after the 59-all tie, there was no scoring at all in a series of 0-0 jams as lead jammers consistently cut off jams early due to unfavorable pack conditions. In the fourth jam of that sequence, it looked like Homicide finally had the advantage as Virginia Slim burst out of the pack with lead while Davey Jones was still caught up, but that jam would end early with Homicide blocker Sin Diesel going down on a injury (he was, however, able to skate off under his own power after a short timeout.)

That left the score still tied at 59 with about three minutes left to play, and Homicide finally got the big break they needed when Dr. Spankenstein hit the penalty box while Justice Feelgood Marshall took lead and four points before taking a big block from Bazooka Joe that sent him careening off the track and almost directly into the scoreboard operator's table, which had the effect of creating a lengthy referee timeout to reset the scoreboard.

Justice had called the previous jam upon hitting the table, so it left Homicide with a significant advantage on the next jam -- Spankenstein still in the penalty box, a 63-59 lead for Homicide, 2:15 left on the period clock and a rested Justice back on the line. With plenty of time to set up clean passes on the power play, the Homicide all but locked up the victory on this jam as Justice motored for the biggest jam of the night with a 14-1 that also created the biggest point margin of the night at Homicide 77, Dirty Dozen 60.

The Dirty Dozen called timeout to force a final jam, but they needed both lead jammer and a huge jam to close that 17 point gap, and they'd get neither -- Virginia Slim ended the match in style by barely landing an apex leap for lead jammer, and immediately called it off at 0-0 to ice the win and kick off a rowdy celebration for the Homicide, relishing a long-delayed victory over the very first team they'd ever played.

Stats

Justice Feelgood Marshall, used exclusively as a jammer in this bout, led all scoring with 44 points on 15 jams, a +29 jammer point differential and 9 lead jam calls. Virginia Slim jammed 8 times for 13 points, a +3 JPD and 4 lead jam calls; Deutsch Bag needed 7 jams to also get 13 points, but was outscored by 14 points and took 2 lead jam calls. Gearhead went to the line 3 times, taking 7 points and 1 lead jam call while being outscored by a point.

For the visiting Dirty Dozen, Dr. Spankenstein led with 26 points on 14 jams and got 7 lead jam calls, but was outscored by 10 points; Davey Jones had 16 points on 13 jams and also took lead 7 times, but was outscored by 4 points. Bazooka Joe was the only PVRD jammer in positive point differential -- he jammed 3 times for 14 points and 1 lead jam call, claiming a +5 JPD.

Support came from debuting rookies Sideswipe (2 jams, 4 points, 1 lead jam call, -6 JPD) and  Will Jettison (1 jam, 0 points, no lead jam calls, -2 JPD.)

Homicide collected more penalties than their opponents; with 33 minors and 12 majors, they spent a total of 17 minutes in the penalty box, while Pioneer Valley had 26 minors and 8 majors for only 11 minutes in the box. Notably, the lead jammer battle in this bout was perfectly even -- both teams took it 16 times in the 33 jams of the bout.

The Rev was named MVP for Pioneer Valley, while Justice Feelgood Marshall got the accolade for Harm City.

The evening's results moved Harm City to 3-1 on the year with wins over Connecticut and Diamond City and a loss to the New York Shock Exchange -- Pioneer Valley fell to 1-3, having split a two-game series with Connecticut and also having lost to New York.

Pioneer Valley is next in action at home on August 22 when they take on Puget Sound Derby Outcasts in the very first meeting of East Coast and West Coast men's derby. Harm City Homicide is next in action as a combined team, joining forces with PVRD as the Dirty Homicide to take on the Death Shock (a combined team of New York Shock Exchange and Connecticut Death Quads) in a full-length expo bout at the WFTDA Eastern Regionals in Raleigh, NC; that action takes place on Sunday, September 13.