Weekend in Review, 4/19/2010

By Derby News Network, Last updated Wed Apr 21 2010 6:34pm

WFTDA Sanctioned | General Interleague | Local Action

WFTDA Sanctioned

#17 Steel Hurtin' 177, Dutchland All-Stars 97 -- The Dutchland All-Stars and Dutchland Blitz competed in a hard-fought double-header against Steel Hurtin' and Blitzburgh Bombers in Pittsburgh. Both WFTDA teams entered the bout with 2-1 records so far this year, but the main event ended with a Steel City win.

Steel Hurtin' jumped to an early 9-0 lead when captain Athena took out both the opposing captain, Jolene Jawbreaker, and her jammer, Skid Ho, in one fell swoop, while her jammer, Hurricane Heather, racked up points. Following that, ‘Snot Rocket Science grabbed another 14 while Dutchland jammer Nash Villain cooled her skates in the penalty box. Another powerjam for Steel Hurtin’ led to a 15-point scamper by Cheeseburger and a massive early 46-2 lead.

With the bout seemingly in hand, ‘Snot Rocket Science skated both forward and backwards in a defensive jam, harrying Nash Villain who, perhaps taking exception to a celebratory wiggle, knocked ‘Snot hard just after the jam was called. The no-harm-done bump seemed to alter both the momentum and tenor of the bout and emotions ran high as Dutchland grittily fought its way back into the match. Captain Athena’s big hits led to multiple trips to the box and jammer after jammer seemed to follow while Dutchland coach Merv the Perv wore out a path to the center refs. In their first rematch since the incident, both ‘Snot Rocket Science and Nash Villain wound up sitting for some time with the Dutchland skater coming out ahead, scoring 10 in the powerjam.

With one jammer or another in the box almost every jam, penalty-killing skills became critical, with excellent work by WhipSmart! and J-Bomb for Steel Hurtin’ and Lapcat and Josie Cuervo for Dutchland. Despite their efforts, Twisted Scizzors scored 13 for Dutchland and Hurricane Heather banged out 11 for Steel Hurtin’. The half ended with ‘Snot Rocket Science out-dancing Lapcat for 8 and an 84-53 lead for Hurtin'.

In the early minutes of the second half, Steel Hurtin' pushed the lead up to 44 points, but as they began to get called out for penalties, Dutchland jammers Renegade Raven and Nash Villain scored 15 and 8 respectively to close the gap to 104-88, a mere 16 points, with 15 minutes to go.

The next jam saw another major momentum shift, as ‘Snot Rocket Science split the front wall of blockers to capture lead jammer, pivot Ally McKill came up huge, forcing Skid Ho out of bounds and into an outside track-cutting penalty. The powerjam begun, Steel Hurtin’ called it after a few points to bring in the lightning-fast Hurricane Heather who proceeded to rack up 18 points before Skid Ho could rally back to the pack. Hurtin' jammers grabbed 9 more in one jam, then an additional 15 on another powerjam. The Steel Hurtin’ defense became impregnable with La Diabla playing a great pivot-on-pivot strategy on Lapcat.

After numerous high-scoring jams, Steel Hurtin’ had racked up an incredible 60-1 run and the score sat at 168-89. A bit more than a minute later, the final tally was 177-97 as Steel Hurtin’ answered the Pennsylvania Dutch barn-raising with some Pittsburgh hell-raising. -- Jessica Smith

Naptown Roller Girls Tornado Sirens 133, Ohio Roller Girls All Stars 34 -- In the headline bout of the Naptown/Ohio double header, the Sirens took the track against the Ohio All Stars and came out with guns blazing. Naptown’s Maiden America wore the star in the first jam, meeting Ohio’s HellionBOI on the line. Naptown nabbed two points in the first jam and started a trend that wasn’t broken until jam 10, when Ohio’s Z managed to use her lead-jammer status to score the first four points of the night for her team. By halftime, the Sirens led 51-5.

The Sirens showed no signs of slowing down when they came back for the second period. To get things started jammer Amooze Booche juked her way through a penalty-depleted Ohio pack to score a game-high 14 points to HellionBOI’s zero. The Ohio jammers answered with some firepower of their own when Kitty Liquorbottom increased the Ohio score by two points in jam 19, and her team continued to put points on the board for the following seven jams. Nevertheless, with 15 minutes left in the game, Naptown held a commanding lead at 105-18.

Meanwhile in the pack, Sirens Cereal Killer, 4 Leaf Cleaver, and Sweet C delivered some blockbuster hits. Pivot Ana Slays Ya covered every inch of the track at the front of the pack, a pesky last line of defense for Ohio jammers, keeping their highest scorer, Phoenix Bunz, to just 11 points. Each of Naptown’s jammers—Booche and Maiden with the added support of Blue Messiah and the always-dependable Slammy Faye—put upwards of 30 points on the board. That, combined with the defensive strategies of Naptown’s pack, gave the Indianapolis team a clear advantage over the visitors. By the final whistle, NRG had the win, with a score of 133 to 34. -- Valerie Hurtinelli

#6 Rose City 135, #11 Charm City 67 -- Charm City had immense trouble with the penalty box in the first half of this bout, repeatedly facing 4-2 pack disadvantages that were very effectively exploited by tight Rose City teamwork.

After a defense-heavy opening jam that went 3-0 to Rose, the second jam was a preview of coming attractions as Mistress May Eye and Holly Go Hardly were boxed as blockers for Charm City. Rose City's jammer Cadillac was able to navigate the separated remaining blockers while the whole Rose City pack drilled Charm City jammer Lady Quebeaum, and the 15-0 to Cadillac opened up a Rose City lead that steadily increased for the remainder of the half.

It wasn't till the last ten minutes of the half that Rose City really started to pull away with it, though -- the score still stood at a reasonable 58-24 with 11:50 to go, but trouble kept coming from the lopsided pack situations. Rose City's Scratcher in the Eye was able to roll to a 15-0 powerjam win while CCRG had only one blocker out on the floor due to an overfull penalty box queue. That was the beginning of a back-breaking 33-3 run for Rose City to close the half. At the break Rose City seemingly had the game in half with a 91-27 lead.

While Charm wasn't able to turn the game around, they did a far better job of avoiding pack-destruction calls in the second half, and it seemed that the numbers game was usually either even or slightly favoring Charm for the majority of the half. Accordingly, the second-half score was much closer -- after going up by 64 points in the first half, Rose City only added 4 points to their margin in the second half (44-40 Rose City). -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

See the archived video from the Rose City Rollers.

Read the archived boutcast.

#1 Oly 156, #11 Charm City 102 -- Baltimore's Charm City never held a lead on the 2009 WFTDA champs in this bout, but a handful of big powerjams just when Oly looked set to pull away kept Charm in the bout into the last ten minutes. In the end, though, Oly jammers Atomatrix, Tannibal Lector and Heffer outpaced Charm in a very fast game.

In the first half, there were only three jams where Charm City outscored Oly, but almost all of Oly's wins were by 4 or fewer points. Heffer gave the home team a 10-0 lead to start with a double grand-slam on Bambi's Revenge, and from there the score slowly went up on the Oly side. In the tenth jam, star jammers Joy Collision and Atomatrix went head to head for Charm's second jam win, 4-1. That put the score at 39-23 at the midpoint of the half, but the Charm offense went almost entirely cold for a critical stretch, allowing Oly to open up the lead to 58-27 with 5:39 on the clock and then 70-34 with only about two minutes to play.

Right then, though, was when Charm got their biggest jam of the night -- a major back block on Atomatrix allowed Charm's Lady Quebeaum to drop a 19-0 against a light, separated Oly pack. A game that had looked almost out of hand had suddenly narrowed to a 17 point differential, and the 70-53 score stood through halftime.

The second half ended up being fairly similar. Once again, Oly took repeated small-margin wins and held their largest lead of the bout thus far at 104-66 with about 20 minutes to play … and once again, a big powerjam swung momentum back to Charm City. Another Atomatrix trip to the box as jammer, along with 2-2 packs on the floor, gave Flo Shizzle the space and time she needed to roll up a 19-0 of her own to get Charm City within 19 points at 104-85.

Although Charm kept some momentum going by managing to hold Femme Fatale to just a 1-0 on the subsequent powerjam for Oly, Charm City would never be within 20 points again. They were still in it with 6:28 to play when Dolly Rocket rolled to a 12-0 powerjam win to make it 128-97, but the longshot chance evaporated when rookie Charm City jammer Twibite went to the box in back-to-back jams, leaving Atomatrix to run up a 15-0 and Heffer to add a 5-3. One jam later, Oly had the win on a 156-102 final. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Read the archived boutcast.

#7 Rat City 145, #11 Charm City 103 -- A heated rematch between two teams that had played a controversial classic at the 2009 ECE was no less intense than the first meeting. Rat City and Charm City played to a 52-52 stalemate at the half and Charm City held a 24 point lead with 17 minutes to play. Unfortunately for the visitors, an enormous 25-0 from Rat City's Jalapeno Business, along with a rough series of an expulsion and three ejections to the heart of Charm City's lineup, allowed Rat City to come away with revenge for the 2009 meeting and square their all-time series at 1-1.

The opening of the game saw the advantage staying narrowly with Rat City, who built a 20-7 lead over the first ten minutes. The first big powerjam of the night went to them at that point, as RCRG's Jalepeno Business rolled for a 12-0 while opposing number Joy Collision was stuck in the box. The powerjam advantage flipped on the following jam as Jalepeno started in the box, but Charm City was unable to lock in their usually very effective powerjam trap and only came away with a 5-0 for Just Carol.

With the score 32-14 and 14:30 left in the half, it looked like Charm City would get a second chance for the big powerjam when Reanimate Her was boxed as the Rat jammer, but the opportunity was lost when Charm's Flo Shizzle followed her in, and it turned into just a 4-2 win for Charm City.

Rat City held the margin at about the same level at 44-23 with 8 minutes to go, but Charm City finally struck back as the period closed. A 10-0 for Just Carol, followed two jams later by a 15-4 for Carol again, got Charm to within 3 points at 50-47. They took a one-point lead on the half's second-to-last jam with a textbook 4-0 for Flo Shizzle, though Rat City's Valtron got the point back with a 2-1 win over Just Carol to leave the score tied at the half, 52-52.

The second half started with a couple of scoreless jams followed by narrow wins for each team, leaving Rat City barely up 59-57 with 24 minutes to play -- but Rat City's penalty box got filled to the brim and Charm's Lady Quebeaum tore up the light RCRG pack for a 19-0 that gave Charm their biggest lead of the bout to that point with a 76-59.

Unfortunately for Charm City, the parade of departing skaters started on the following jam. Rosie the Rioter went down with an injury and seemed to crawl towards the infield before rethinking it and crawling back into the middle of the track, forcing the jam call for injury -- a choice that wasn't popular with the Rat City fans, who booed as Primp Daddy's lead jammer status went for naught. However, the refs expelled Rosie at that point, judging her gambit to be gross misconduct.

Charm City added some more margin to open up their lead to 83-59 with 18 to play, but Rat City suddenly caught fire there. A 4-0 for Anya Heels and a 5-0 for Juliet Bravo were just the setup for the game-changer -- a monster 25-0 for Jalepeno Business as Lady Quebeaum was battered by Anya Heels and Carmen Getsome in the pack and eventually was forced into a box trip.

Rat retook the lead 93-83 with that one, and the Rat City rally continued all the way to 114-87 with 9:30 to go -- a 55-4 run over ten minutes. Matters didn't get any better for Charm City when crucial blocker Dolly Rocket fouled out with ten minutes to play. With the score 127-91 Rat City and 6 minutes to play, Charm City suffered another huge loss when Joy Collision also fouled out.

Holly Go Hardly would follow suit on the second-to-last jam of the game, but by that point Rat City had the game in hand with a 134-95 lead. When it was all over at 145-103, Rat City had outscored Charm 86-20 over the last 18 minutes. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Read the archived boutcast.