RMRG Embarks On 3-Game PNW Tour

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Sat May 22 2010 2:03pm

This weekend, Rocky Mountain (#3 W WFTDA, #5 DNN) hits the Pacific Northwest to take on three top-ten teams in a series that has the potential to solidify or seriously shake up the WFTDA Western Region rankings. Friday night sees Rocky take on Portland's Rose City (#4 W WFTDA, #6 DNN), Saturday features a clash with 2009 champs Oly (#1 WFTDA, #2 DNN), and Sunday finishes the tour with a matchup against Rat City (#5 W WFTDA, #7 DNN).

DNN's coverage of the Rocky Mountain tour begins on Friday, May 21 at 8pm Pacific (11pm Eastern) as Rocky Mountain takes on Rose City. Live video coverage is kindly provided courtesy of the Rose City Rollers and Blaze Streaming Media.

With the impressive concentration of top-flight derby in the Pacific Northwest region, weekend trips to play two or three of the major teams in the area have been increasingly popular. In March, #11 Madison rolled in to play Rat City and Oly, and in April #10 Charm City came through to play Rose City, Oly and Rat City. The visitors lost all five of those bouts, but given Rocky Mountain's very impressive performance in the past few months, they have a good chance to come out of their three-game swing with a winning record -- and possibly even an undefeated one.

The biggest feather in Rocky's cap came just two weeks ago when they swamped a historically very dangerous Texas team by the biggest margin in Texas' 6-year interleague history, 163-64, with Texas ranked #1 in their South Central region and #3 in the nation at the time. They've also smashed two other top-25 leagues (Duke City (215-47) and Bay Area (195-17)) thus far this year, and have gone 5-0 since their loss to crosstown rivals Denver in the 3rd place bout of 2009's WFTDA Nationals.

Rocky Mountain's placement in 2009 Nationals was of course made possible by a big upset of Rose City in the 2009 Western Regionals, where Rocky was the 8th seed of 10 and Rose was the 3 seed; Rocky went on to lose to Oly in the championship bout of the Westerns, 119-64, and is likely out for revenge. For Oly, there's something else on the line -- the 2009 champs are currently sitting on a 16-0 record in WFTDA-sanctioned bouts that dates back to January 2009. If they can defeat Rocky Mountain this weekend and Texas on June 5, they'll tie Gotham's record for the longest WFTDA winning streak ever -- and with a closed but sanctioned bout against lowly-ranked Tucson on June 27, they'd have a golden opportunity to break it.

Rose City and Rat City played a game just last weekend that reflected their back-to-back ranking in both the WFTDA and DNN systems, with Rose leading all the way but only escaping with a 19-point win, 124-105. That result moved both teams to 4-1 on the 2010 campaign, with Rose City's only loss coming by 8 points to champs Oly. Although both Rat City and Rocky Mountain are very experienced teams who were part of the original 30 teams of WFTDA, they have never faced one other in sanctioned action before.

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