By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Thu May 13 2010 4:02am

Women's Track

Championship Bout: #12 Detroit 109, #16 Steel City 82 -- #16 Steel City put up an impressive fight against tournament favorites #12 Detroit, and held a lead with under 15 minutes to play, but Detroit managed to string a series of late-game jam wins together to escape with a deceptively large 27-point victory and the 2010 Spring Roll women's title.

Detroit led through the first half, but a big jam for Steel City put them ahead 58-47 on the very first jam of the second half; that was a lead that would grow as large as 75-61 on the back of a 9-0 powerjam for Steel City's The Shocker. After a well-timed timeout there, Detroit got an answer from Cookie Rumble on the following jam, who put up an 8-0 spot to narrow Steel City's lead to 75-69 with about 16 minutes left to play.

The lead switched hands for the final time at the 11 minute mark when Detroit's Effin' Money was on the right side of a musical-chairs situation for the jammers. That put Detroit in front at 80-78, but the drama wasn't quite over. Detroit's lead inched to 10 points before Steel City had a golden opportunity on a powerjam with the score Detroit 88, Steel City 78 -- but an effective penalty kill from Detroit held The Crippler to only 4 points, leaving Detroit up 88-82 with just under 6 minutes left on the clock.

Steel City caught a tough break on the next jam, where key blocker Athena took a hard fall and took just a second too long getting back up. The referees called the jam for injury even though she appeared to be all right -- meaning that Steel City was without one of their most important blockers for three jams where they needed her most.

With 3:30 left to play, Steel City was still just one big jam away from the lead at 97-82, but that jam went south quickly. SCDD jammer The Shocker picked up a 4th minor and hit the penalty box while Detroit's Cookie Rumble and Sarah Hipel combined on a clock-killing, game-sealing star pass for 12-0. Steel City squeezed two more jams out of the ensuing time, but they both went 0-0, giving Detroit the win at 109-82.

Spring Roll Undercards: Naptown put up a pretty good fight in the first half of their semifinal bout against Detroit, leading early and then hanging close in the opening ten. Detroit wasn't able to open up more than a 10 point lead until there were 15 minutes left in the first half, but they followed that up by opening up a 45-17 lead with 11 minutes left. A strong rally from Naptown here climaxed with a 17-0 for Amuse Bouch that finished off a 28-3 Naptown run and made it 48-45 with just 2:33 left in the half, although a 4-0 followed by a 9-0 for Detroit gave them some breathing room at the break, 61-45. Detroit did not allow Naptown to make the second half quite as dramatic, though, winning the last thirty minutes 89-49 to advance to the championship bout by a final of 150-94.

Both opening-round bouts were significant blowouts, as Naptown whipped Fort Wayne 148-49 and Steel City trounced Bleeding Heartland 194-48; Fort Wayne had a slightly tougher time in their fourth-place bout against Bleeding Heartland, but FWDG won 97-68.