Team Awesome Rebuffs Team SeXY, 132-113

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Wed Aug 4 2010 6:19pm

LAS VEGAS, NV -- In the third meeting between all-star women's squad Team Awesome and all-star men's squad Team SeXY, it was Team Awesome hanging on in an extremely closely contested -- and contentious -- game to escape with a 132-113 win, taking the lead in the year-old series with 2 wins and 1 loss.

Read the play-by-play in DNN's archived text boutcast.

Awesome's roster was missing team founder Ivanna S. Pankin, still sidelined while recovering from knee surgery, but had plenty of power in the ranks: 4 players from Rocky Mountain (Frida Beater, She Who Cannot Be Named, Assaultin' Pepa and Whipity Pow) and 3 from San Diego (Trish the Dish, Dahmernatrix, and Kung Pow Tina) were joined by a motley gang from highly regarded WFTDA teams: Denver's Teresa Rusk, Oly's Harmony Killerbruise, North Star's MEDUSA, Santa Cruz' Lulu Lockjaw, and Daddy's Girl and Shadow Soldier from Sacred.

On the SeXY side, Justice Feelgood Marshall (Harm City) captained a team with three from Puget Sound (Quadzilla, Ryrod and Radillac), two from St. Louis (Magnum P.I.M.P. and Bat Wing), and a grab bag from elsewhere around the nation - Johnny Smokescreen (Tucson), Shortbus (Dallas), Rinkworm (New York), Dirty Larry (Twin Cities), Cupples Sk8 (Portland), The Rev (Pioneer Valley) and Streak (Magic City).

In the opening few jams, it looked possible that Team SeXY would run away with it -- they took the first 5 lead jam calls and built a 27-0 lead to start the bout. She Who Cannot Be Named got a big pop from the crowd by getting lead and pulling a 4-3 win over Quadzilla to get Awesome on the board at 31-4.

About halfway through the opening 30, Awesome had cut down the big opening lead to 35-12, and might have made further inroads without the setback of a double lead-jammer call that trailing jammer Justice Feelgood Marshall was quick to take advantage of, leading to the jeers of the crowd and the beginning of the first of many lengthy referee timeouts. Soon after, though, the first of many penalty avalanches came down to bury SeXY, as they lost their jammer Quadzilla and 3 blockers to the box as Kung Pow Tina raced to an easy 20-0. One jam later, with the pack still 4-2 favoring Awesome, MEDUSA dropped a 4-0 to put Awesome in front for the first time, 36-35.

The penalty woes continued for SeXY, providing more lopsided powerjam opportunities for Awesome -- and it came to a head near the very end of the half, when SeXY lost one of their critical players, Magnum P.I.M.P., on a very early foulout. At that point it was 67-43 and Awesome had been on a 55-8 run for most of the half, but SeXY's Streak jammed to a timely 15-0 to end the half at 67-58 Team Awesome.

The second half opened looking like Awesome might pull away for good with a 33-2 run that put them up 100-60, but the middle of the half was completely owned by SeXY - 4-0 to Quadzilla, 10-3 to Justice Feelgood Marshall, 10-0 for Streak, 2-0 for Rinkworm and 3-0 for Justice slowly whittled the 40 point lead down to 11 points at 103-92 with about 10 minutes to play.

While Awesome finally got their scoring going again, Team SeXY didn't allow them to go on another run and was within single digits with three minutes left to play, 122-113. It looked like they were on their way to potentially erasing the gap as Streak, jamming for SeXY unopposed, leapt over Assaultin' Pepa on the apex for lead jammer status -- but on his way to his first scoring pass, lead jammer status was rescinded and he was sent to the box instead.

It was the nail in the coffin for SeXY, as Awesome scored a 10-0 on the jammer switch -- and with Awesome up 132-113 going into the last jam, they got lead jammer and called at 0-0 for the win.