Preview: #4 Denver at #21 Duke City

By Moon Yang, Last updated Fri May 14 2010 5:03pm

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – This Saturday at the Albuquerque Convention Center, fans will get to see the first bout between the Denver Roller Dolls’ Mile High Club and Duke City Derby’s Muñecas Muertas since the Four Corner Feud tournament in Colorado Springs in February 2009. Duke City went into the Four Corners Feud as the top seed (after an astonishing upset of 2007 National Champions the Kansas City Roller Warriors at 2008 Western Regionals in Houston earned them their first and, so far, only invite to Nationals), and Denver entered the tournament as the fourth seed out of six.

Tune in for live text coverage of this bout provided by DNN.

A close first-round defeat of number five seed Tucson pitted Denver against top seed Duke City. Duke City, known as the originators of the “slow-pack” style of play, was bested by Denver in a 118-71 upset in which Denver showed that they had learned to play the Duke City style and perfected this strategy. Ironically, Duke City originally developed this maverick style in order to compete against what they perceived to be a very fast Denver team. Denver went on to win the Four Corner Feud, using the Duke City “slow-pack” strategy heavily to their advantage.

This was the beginning of a legendary season for Denver. After ending the 2008 season by taking ninth place at Western Regionals, Denver ended the 2009 season by winning third place at the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) Championships. Denver has a 2-0 record so far for the 2010 season: clobbering Fort Collins 391-14 and upsetting flat-track roller derby founders and perennial championship contenders Texas 130-112. Denver will be showcasing a roster that has remained largely unchanged since Western Regionals.

Duke City’s course in the past year has run opposite of Denver’s. Duke City entered the 2009 Western Regional tournament as the unfortunate sixth seed, pitting them against current WFTDA champs the Oly Rollers in the first round. Duke City was defeated by Oly 165-92 and, after and narrow and breathtaking final-jam loss to Bay Area, finished the tournament where they had started: sixth place.

Duke City’s roster has changed quite a bit since Western Regionals, however. They lost former team captain Kamikaze Kim to Rat City at the beginning of the season. Also missing from the roster are the imposing Miss E. Vil, tenacious Death Ro, and Dahmernatrix who had transferred to non-WFTDA San Diego before Western Regionals but still returned to play for Duke City against Oly. Duke City will still be featuring some nationally-recognized skaters in Muffin, Meep Meep, and Amanda Jamitinya.

Although it is still early in the season, Duke City has already played a number of opponents in 2010, with wildly different results: At the Wild West Showdown in Bremerton, WA, Duke soundly beat Sacred City (currently ranked ninth in the Western region) but only narrowly overcame Jet City (currently ranked 12th in the West). Then, on a two-bout trip to Colorado, Duke was trounced by Rocky Mountain 215-47 but then walked all over Pikes Peak the next day 221-91. Most recently, Duke crushed both Arizona and newcomer Silicon Valley by ~100-point margins at the Dust Devil in Tucson.

Denver has both rankings and roster stability on their side, so an upset by Duke here would considerably shake up both regional and national rankings. These two teams have not met in over a year, so the most relevant data for predicting results might be from triangulating recent scores from the Rocky Mountain-Duke City (215-47), Denver-Texas (130-112), and Rocky Mountain-Texas (163-64) bouts.

This bout will take place in the middle of a very busy day for Duke City, right between a special expo bout introducing the Taos Whiplashes and a three-way round-robin featuring all three Duke City home teams.

Denver roster: #5 Deirdre Sage // #9 Vicky Cruz // #10 Danica Doležal // #19 Julie Adams // #20 Monica Carson // #90 Gabrielle Begeman // #99 Tracy Akers // #303 Heather Juska // #350 Jessica Rivas // #357 November James // #505 Shannon Dorato // #911 Teresa Rusk // #1055 Caitlin Preston // #1982 Ariel Quigley

Duke City roster: #9 Amanda Jamitinya // #K9 Brutalitar // #138 Carson B. Demented // #187 Doom Dee Doom // #H20 Elvira Mental // #28 Hot Box // #11 Killer Queen // #711 Led Zyppin // #80D Meep Meep // #211 Miss L Command // #350 Muffin // #505 Sabrosa // #409 Spic N' Span // #314 Tronsexual