#24 Montreal Stuns #6 Rat City, 110-103

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Sun Feb 13 2011 1:05am

SEATTLE, WA -- Heavy underdog Montreal, unofficially ranked #24 in the nation by DNN and #7 in the East by WFTDA, came into the first game of a three-bout Pacific Northwest swing against unofficial #6 in the nation and #5 in the West Rat City and landed a huge upset. Montreal only led three times in the game, but they were in front when it mattered, coming back from an early 59-11 deficit to win 110-103.

Though there were some new names on the Rat City roster -- rookies Shorty Ounce, Method of Madness, Trouble Loves Mimi, Corre Caminos and Glitter, along with longtime vet but recent transfer Goodie Two Skates -- they also had standouts Carmen Getsome, Kamikaze Kim, Juliet Bravo, ReAnimateHer and Primp Daddy. Notably missing from last year's tournament crew were Anya Heels, Jalepeno Business, Valtron and X-Khan. Montreal came in with mostly the same roster that had played at the 2010 Easterns, though they only had 13 players for the trip.

Read DNN's archived text boutcast of this game.

The opening seven minutes saw a number of low-scoring jams that left Rat City barely ahead with a 9-5 advantage, but the margin was busted wide open on the game's sixth jam. Montreal jammer Iron Wench joined a full MTL penalty box and the floor was open for Rat City's Carmen Getsome to rack up a huge 27-2. Penalty trouble continued for Montreal as Wench went back to the box at the end of that jam, and that led to a 15-0 score for Juliet Bravo. In the space of two jams, the score had jumped from 9-5 to 51-7 with 18:20 left in the first half.

But when Montreal was able to keep their jammer out of the box, the game went right back to the small-margin scores that had opened the game. Still, they were slowly losing ground, with the deficit reaching its largest point at 48 points -- 59-11 -- with 12:31 left in the half. Part of their trouble came from the loss of Ewan Wotarmy, who'd taken a hit to the face early in the game and sat most of the opening half, leaving Iron Wench and Georgia W. Tush running a one-two jammer line for some time.

A 5-0 for Tush followed by a 13-2 powerjam for Iron Wench gave Montreal the beginnings of a comeback, making the score 61-29 with just under nine minutes left in the half. The charge continued with Montreal narrowing it all the way to 65-41 going into the last jam of the half, where Carmen Getsome managed to finally get a clean jam win with a 9-0 that ended the half at 74-41.

The Montreal comeback really caught fire in the beginning of the second half, which opened with a 4-0 to Iron Wench and 15-0 to a returned Ewan Wotarmy to get Montreal within striking distance at 74-60. Though Rat City got their scoring going again, they couldn't stop Montreal's inexorable encroachment on the lead. With 20 minutes left in the game, they finally got the margin back to single digits at 78-72.

Already having trouble with a revved up Montreal, Rat City got into jammer trouble they couldn't afford with about 16 minutes left and the score 78-75. Wile E. Peyote was sent to the box for a two-minute stint as Rat's jammer, but Rat City's blockers battered Ewan Wotarmy into a star pass to Cheese Grater and Montreal only got 2-0 out of it. However, Wile left the box after only one minute, getting herself called back for another two minutes in the box. That set up the lead change, as Iron Wench blew through a light Rat pack on powerjam for a 7-0 that made it Montreal 84, Rat City 78 with 11:57 to play, capping a 43-4 run through the half for Montreal.

Rat City took it right back on the following jam, though, climbing all over Georgia W. Tush while Juliet Bravo ran for 15-0 to make it 93-84 Rat with ten minutes left. And then the game reverted to the same way it had opened, with narrow-margin single pass scores that left Rat City barely clinging to a 99-95 lead with about 5 minutes to play.

The score was stuck right there for two jams before a 2-0 for Iron Wench made it 99-97 Rat City with 2:20 left to play. Rat City called time there, which had the effect of resting Iron Wench to go right back to the jam line for what proved to be the game-winning jam. A 4-2 pack favoring Montreal allowed Wench to get lead and Montreal to lock down on Bravo for a 13-4 Montreal run.

Rat called timeout with 6 seconds left on the clock -- and Montreal responded with a following timeout of their own -- but there'd be no last-jam heroics for the home team, who still faced a 4-2 pack disadvantage. Montreal's Ewan Wotarmy shot through untouched for lead and called the jam at 0-0, sealing the upset win for Montreal.