Spring Roll: MRDA Recaps

By Derby News Network, Last updated Wed May 25 2011 6:40pm

Sunday | Saturday

St. Louis Gatekeepers 158, New York Shock Exchange 138 -- After winning 24 straight games and almost losing their first one against Puget Sound on Saturday night, the very experienced New York Shock Exchange finally met their match in the younger St. Louis Gatekeepers. Just 13 months after their first public bout, the Gatekeepers got a 158-138 win over the team that had won the first modern-rules men's game in April 2007 and had never lost since.

This game was DNN's first Spotlight Game with AMJ Productions. See the full game.

The Gatekeepers came off the blocks on fire in this one; after four jams (the last a 13-0 powerjam for Bat Wing behind sparkling offense), it was 30-0 about 8 minutes into the game. When NYSE finally got on the board there, it was only a 2-0 win for Rinkworm, and more jammer penalty trouble for NYSE led to a 17-0 powerjam win for Short Knox; St. Louis was up 48-2 on the Shock Exchange after just ten minutes. Fortunately for NYSE, things started turning around at that point. A 3-1 to Jonathan R was NYSE's first jam win of the game at 17:50, and New York took advantage when St. Louis lost their jammer Debaucherous Prime on the next jam; Rinkworm tripled the STL score with a 15-0 for a new score of 49-20 and Jonathan R added a 19-0 to follow that. Suddenly, the Shock Exchange was right back in the game at 49-39, inspiring St. Louis to take their first timeout of the game.

STL's Gnat King Kill landed a 4-0 after the timeout; Short Knox kept the momentum in the Gatekeepers' favor with a 5-0, lapping Rinkworm. New York called a timeout of their own in response with the score 58-39 and 11:05 in the half. However, following that timeout, NYSE jammer Ladies Knight was boxed and quickly followed by Filthy McNasty and Jefferee; Bat Wing had a clear path to a 15-0 and ended the jam with a little jammer action on the returning Ladies Knight. With 8:29 in the half, it was 73-39 St. Louis. The margin stayed about the same to the half -- at break, the score was 90-55 St. Louis.

NYSE dropped shutdown jams on the first three frames of the second half, 5-0, 1-0 and 3-0, to cut a little bit off the lead at 90-64. For the first ten minutes of the half, every jam was either an NYSE win or a tie, and once again, New York was crawling back into a game that St. Louis was threatening to run away with -- 95-73 St. Louis with 20:15 left in the game. During a lengthy timeout there, St. Louis' Percy Controll was ejected on a gross misconduct call for an intentional kick.

Debaucherous Prime finally got the Gatekeepers back to their first half form behind a swarming pack of High Pains Drifter, Juke Blocks Hero and Wrecking Bill; the 18-0 jam put St. Louis up 113-75 with 17 to play. NYSE got their next big opportunity with the score 121-80 and 13 minutes left; St. Louis had their box totally full, but a badly timed forearm call on NYSE jammer Ladies Knight on Zombie Jesus ended the NYSE powerjam. Still, though, Ladies Knight got out of it with a 18-5 win to make it 126-98 with 10:58 left. Key NYSE blocker Vader fouled out following that jam to a rousing goodbye serenade from the St. Louis fans in the bleachers. The next jam ended awkwardly when NYSE blocker Wolfgang Von Stomp went down on injury, but Gnat King Kill had already picked up 12-0 before the call and the game entered its last 10 minutes with St. Louis holding a solid but not insurmountable lead, 138-98.

From that point on, St. Louis seemed to play more conservatively with an emphasis on avoiding box time, and it led to six jams worth of small ball jams that only increased their lead by 9 points but drained precious comeback time for New York. The score was 150-105 with about 3:15 minutes to play when STL's lead jammer Bat Wing was perfectly willing to let NYSE score points on a long 8-4 STL win to kill some clock.

Two jams later, New York called a timeout with 33 seconds on the clock and a score of 158-114. Final NYSE jammer Rinkworm did his best to close that gap when STL's Bat Wing was boxed early in the going and was able to put up 24 unanswered points in a herculean full-length effort, but the margin was just too large, and St. Louis took the historic win by 20 points, 158-138. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Puget Sound Outcasts 127, Pioneer Valley Dirty Dozen 102 -- MRDA’s last bout of the weekend matched up two teams which last played in the fall of 2009, the Puget Sound Outcasts against Pioneer Valley’s Dirty Dozen. At their last meeting the Outcasts took a loss with a much shorter roster and the bout rescheduled and relocated due to venue. Puget Sound came into the bout a 1-2 record on the weekend while PVRD was 1-1. 

Blockers proved their mettle throughout the bout and both teams rotated their entire jammer rotations into the pack throughout the bout. The Outcasts dominated the front on many jams and holding the offensive position needed to get their jammer lead 13 out of 22 jams in the first period and 15 out of 22 jams in the second. Jams were short and fast with very few running the full two minutes and most running less than a minute. The Dozen seemed to suffer a slightly more penalty trouble than the Outcasts often visiting the box in pairs especially in the second period especially, a situation the Outcasts were good at capitalizing on. The Dozen didn’t fare quite as well when the Outcasts filled the box. Slight differences in converting these opportunities resulted in bigger losses early in the bout.

The Outcasts started out the second period strong keeping the Dozen scoreless until the 5th jam and posted only positive jam points differentials through the 15th jam of the first period playing mostly Hollywood and Scott Slamilton in the jammer slot with very strong showings from Quadzilla, Cory Pain, Grim Streeper, and Thunderstruck also jamming throughout the bout.  The bout hit its widest point differential of 52 points by jam 18, but in jam 20 the Dozen began to turn the game back around when Mars Travolta picked up 19 points against Grim Streeper. With a halftime score of Puget Sound 74, Pioneer Valley 40, it seemed as though the game would stay pretty well split, but the Dozen found their stride before the end of the first period. The teams closed up the score gap with Dr. Spankenstein’s 18-3 jam against Hollywood in jam 15 of the second period. After a quick 3 by Jurasskick in jam 16 brought the score within 14 points at Outcasts 107, Dozen 93 with just over 8 minutes remaining, the Outcasts widened the gap in the final moments to 25 at Puget Sound 127, Pioneer Valley 102.

As the period clock clicked down to the end with less than a second more than the jam clock, the Dozen’s bench coach Fresh Eddie Fresh began signaling a time out 15 seconds before the period ended. When an Official Review and chants from both benches for “one more jam” failed to persuade the officials a time out was in order, both teams took the track in a final “every skater on the track” jam with laps around the track and all the helmet covers twirling. As a final farewell to Spring Roll 2011, these two teams showed the spirit of fun, sportsmanship, and camaraderie prevalent through all the weekend’s bouts. --Bitches Bruze

Pioneer Valley Dirty Dozen 205, Race City Rebels 80 --  The Race City Rebels played their third bout of Spring Roll against Pioneer Valley Roller Derby’s Dirty Dozen in the Dozen's second bout of the event. The Rebels put every last ounce of energy into the bout while the Dozen took a bit of a break from their regular jammer rotation as the first period ended and well into the second period. Not until the 16th jam of the first period did the Rebels post a positive point differential as Master Beta pulled off a 4-1 jam against Jurasskick Park. This same jam saw PVRD's Grizzly Adam expelled on gross misconduct and the Dozen pack a bit spread out. At this point, with only One Nate Stand having scored in jam 6, the Dozen held a commanding lead of 83 to the Rebel’s 9. Notable blockers for the Rebels, Sir NixALot and DV Ant, managed a 30 second clock burn goating Snidely Rinkrash in the 9th.

Besides the jammer stable of Jurasskick Park, Dr. Spankenstein, and Mars Travolta, packs were well managed for the Dozen by alternating pivots Will Jettison and Bazooka Joe and aided by power blockers Mongo, Wrench, and Davy Jones. The Dozen often let the Rebels burn time to spring blockers from the box on jam starts, relying on their lead. In the first period, the Rebels managed lead jammer in 6 of 20 outings but managed to lose points overall with a 15 to 16 score during the jams they held lead and never scoring when they didn’t have lead.
 
The second period began with PVRD’s Rambo Sprinkles starting in the box as jammer after the first period’s last jam and Race City apparently attempting to start their pack partially behind the jammer line. This seemed to have mixed benefit other than to confuse the opposing team which may not have seen it before. In this scenario, the four Rebels blockers started on their knees in front of the jammer line but with their toe stops behind the jammer line. Why they chose to double their bet on being out of play by being on their knees and 150’ in front of the pivot line isn’t particularly clear. One of the four Rebels blockers was immediately sent out on a 4th minor. With the resulting pack speed and skating, Race City’s One Nate Stand had to make nearly two entire laps of the track before he passed the pack in his initial pass and even though his pack was able to hold up the Dozen’s newest skater, Rambo Sprinkles out of the box the remainder of the jam, Nate only managed a 9-0 jam against a thin pack. Ron Scaremy held up Mars Travolta well in the 4th, aiding Nate to lead, but Nate lost the advantage calling it after Mars picked up three points to Nate’s one.With PVRD facing Puget Sound later in the evening, the bench went deeper into the jammer line which yielded some good jams for the Rebels, most especially Master Beta who pulled down a 14-0 jam against Bazooka Joe in the 5th and a 24-0 jam against Davy Jones in the 11th.

Pack work on the part of the Rebels helped as they managed to get the Dirty Dozen jammers into the box in both those jams and forced team-split packs rendering the Dozen defense ineffective. Master Beta’s 24 point jam brought the bout to Dirty Dozen 141 to Rebels 70, but then the Dozen returned to their original jammer rotation and ran up 58 points in the next four jams. The Rebels put an end to Dr. Spankenstein’s last big scoring run in jam 15 by swapping the helmet cover from Upchuck Norris, who spent more than a minute behind the Dozen’s strong defense, to pivot Ron Scaremy who broke through the front as he put it on, keeping Spank from making one final scoring pass. Both teams scored a few points in the last pair of jams and Mars Travolta skated out the last jam until the horn of the clock blew, then called it off immediately at a final of 205-80.

Race City closed their weekend here going 0-3 with losses to Connecticut, Magic City and Pioneer Valley. -- Bitches Bruze

Magic City Misfits 211, Dallas Deception 104 -- As expected, this bout was a high-flying kinetic matchup between two flashy teams; instantaneous stops, reverse-direction positioning, spins and creative checking were in high supply all game long, and there were plenty of bodies flying as each team seemed eager to out-intimidate the other with hard hits. However, the Misfits had the edge from the start. Magic City leapt out to a 40-7 lead after just three jams, with the first two going the full 2 minutes as very aggressive jammers matched against very aggressive blockers had a hard time getting through packs cleanly, and at about 15 minutes Magic City was up 64-12.

Magic City hit 100 points on a Duke Jukem 2-0 with just over 2 minutes left in the first half, making it 100-37 Magic City, and a couple of jams later the halftime break had the score at 112-37. There never was much of a momentum shift, as Dallas had no success closing the gap against Magic City; however, neither team was able to really impose their will on the other team's jammers, with many of the jams in the second half ending with margins of 4 points or fewer.

It was Magic City 151-60 with 13:43 to play when the Misfits finally popped a big one, having taken advantage of a jammer penalty for Dallas by calling the previous jam to set up a full minute to run jammer Streak; Dallas attempted to stop him with a full-track wall twice, but he slipped through it for lead and then jumped past the whole wall in turn 2 over the apex on the way to a 15-0 win. That put Magic City up by triple digits at 166-60 at the 11 minute mark; from there, it was some energetic jamming from Ninja Please that kept Dallas looking good in the last stretch, finally edging them into triple digits in the very last seconds of the bout. The second half was closer than the first with Magic City winning it by 32 as opposed to the first half's 75, but Magic City won 211-104 to become one of two undefeated teams on the weekend. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Twin Cities Terrors 232, Connecticut Death Quads 104 -- This bout was very much a tale of two halves, as Connecticut was within striking distance near the end of the first but Twin Cities completely blew it open in the final 30 minutes, winning the first half by 35 points but the second half by 93.

Twin Cities jumped out to a quick 14-1 lead after two jams, but Connecticut's Zakk Sabbath got CT's first lead jammer status and a 4-0 on jam 3. Unfortunately for Connecticut, their pack was severely hampered by penalty trouble that left them with a backed-up box queue on the following jam; Twin Cities dropped a15-0 on the light pack. Twin Cities built up a 42-6 lead before CT's Crashasaurus Rex grabbed lead and a 4-0; right as he called, TC's Egon Strangler went to the box. That set up a new score of 43-10 and a powerjam for CT ace Cirkle Jerk, who capitalized with a quick 10-0 that froze Egon in the box. However, on the followup CT yet again filled their penalty box and Egon had a relatively easy 20-0 run to put Twin Cities ahead 63-20 with 15:27 left in the first half.

The TC lead stayed at almost the exact same margin to a long referee timeout with 6:25 left in the half. Twin Cities led 96-56 after that, but then lost jammer Timchilla to the penalty box; Pastor of Muppets landed a sweet apex jump on the way to a much-needed 13-0 that got CT a palindrome score at 96-69. When CT's Zakk Sabbath juked his way to a grand slam and 7-0, followed by a 5-0 Pastor powerjam over a boxed Jonathan Elliott, the game had suddenly tightened up considerably at 96-81 with about 32 seconds left in the half. But CT was in penalty trouble of their own on that jam, and Elliott came out of the box to tear up a light CT pack with help from blockers Randy Package and Whiplash; the 20-0 jam gave Twin Cities some more daylight at the break, 116-81.

CT was blanked on the first three jams of the second half. They had an opportunity on jam 3 when TCT jammer Bruce Knuckle was boxed, but Cirkle Jerk joined him the box before scoring points and it ended with a 10-0 for Knuckle, moving Twin Cities' lead to its largest margin at 133-81 with 25 left in the game; CT finally got back on the board in jam 6 following a 4-4 that left it 137-85 Twin Cities. But a big flashy 22-0 powerjam win for Twin Cities' Jonathan Elliott on a light pack put TC in charge for good at 159-85. By the time CT scored again, it was 171-90 with 14:01 to play, and penalty trouble on CT continued to make it very hard for them to mount effective defense or help their jammers. The TC lead broke triple digits at the same time their total broke 200, when Timchilla's 19-0 moved the score to 210-102 with about 4:30 to play in the game, and the half ended up going 116-23 for TC's 128-point win. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Magic City Misfits 210, Race City Rebels 109 -- Magic City joined St. Louis as the only two of the ten teams to go undefeated at Spring Roll 2011 with a 101 point defeat of Indianapolis' Race City Rebels.

The Magic City Misfits started out strong setting the tone for this first time meeting of two new MRDA teams. The Rebels suffered an early set back when One Nate Stand suffered an injury above his shoulders and not only had the jam called (after losing 5 to the Misfits) for his injury but appeared to stay out of the first period altogether. By the sixth jam, the Misfits, with their jam skate-influenced style and lack of toe stops, had pulled a huge 56 to 2 lead over the Rebels with back to back multiple passes in jams 5 and 6 -- 23 and 19 points. The Rebels racked up most of their points in even scoring jams or less than full pack passes until Jam 17 when Meek posted an 18-4 jam over the Misfits’ Johnny Longhare. By this point in the period, the Misfits were keeping the box fairly full of blockers and the pack advantage was finally leveraged by the Rebels getting them back on the board at time when they really needed it. Both teams in this first period tried knee down starts, but often didn’t put knees down until after the jam start whistle, earning pack destruction majors from a very proficient referee crew. The referee crew got an extra challenge on a huge take down in which Race City’s Hurricane blew through the center of the track taking out the penalty board. The period ended with the Misfits doubling up the Rebels, 105 to 49.
 
Starting the second period, the Rebels looked like they might change the story, trading points back and forth and keeping the score an even 16-16 in the first five jams with One Nate Stand returning to the jammer line and sharing it also with Dexter and Master Beta. But the run ended as the Misfits blanked the Rebels 27 – 0 in the next four jams, boosted primarily in jam 9 as Calkin Balls racked up 14 points while Megasoreass kept Dexter at the back of the pack for his first scoring pass and then forced a major cut track, sending Dexter to the box.

Later in jams 13 and 14, One Nate Stand and Upchuck Norris pulled off 15 and 13 point jams respectively, bringing the Rebels over the century mark and the closest margin for awhile at Misfits 177 Rebels 100. One Nate Stand’s 13 point jam was significantly aided by the blocking power of his pack of Meek, Plowboy, Dexter, and Sir NixALot. Magic City’s Duke Jukem answered that run with a 14 – 0 jam of his own in the 15th but not without some tough competition put up by Rebels blockers Westside Slam, Meek, and Sir NixALot.

The Rebels posted a couple more point-positive jams but never without giving up points to the Misfits the rest of the period and Calkin Balls closed out the bout racking up a final jam of 13-0 long after the period clock ended with Dexter sitting in the box. Both teams racked up the penalties with at least the Rebels' Ron Scaremy getting expelled after the second period’s 14th jam and Magic City losing Zambone Her and Powder to the seven trip limit late in the second period. Magic City’s fancy footwork seemed to both help and hurt them as they slipped past Race City’s blockers, but also danced over raised track borders and spun out on whips that should have assisted them. Overall, though, it was a winning formula for MCM with a final score of Magic City Misfits 210 to Race City Rebels 109. -- Bitches Bruze

St. Louis Gatekeepers 261, Harm City Homicide 56 -- As they'd done against Puget Sound on Saturday, St. Louis deployed extremely effective offensive blocking for a speedy, agile jammer core to build a huge halftime lead on the way to a dominating victory.

It took about five jams for St. Louis to get solidly in the driver's seat. St. Louis was up 8-0 after two jams; Harm City's Abe Froman took a track cut on the opening pass of the third, and Gnat King Kill capitalized with a 12-0. GKK was boxed near the end of that, though, allowing Truth Hurtz to get Harm City on the board on jam 4 with a 5-0 to make it 22-5 with about 23 minutes left in the first half. But a 19-0 run for Magnum PIMP made it 41-5.

Although Homicide was able to pick up some points behind STL lead jammers, they weren't able to get another outright jam win for most of the half while St. Louis picked up lead and increased the differential on nearly every jam. With 13 minutes left in the half, St. Louis held a 69-15 advantage; following that, there was a bit of odd deja vu, as Abe Froman again was boxed on a track cut that again led to a big jam for Gnat King Kill (14-0) that again ended with a box trip for GKK that again set up Truth Hurtz for an unopposed jam. This time, though, Gnat got lead out of the box and dropped a 9-0, leaving St. Louis dominating the game at 92-15 with 8:12 left in the half.

It wasn't until there were about 6 minutes in the half that Harm City won another jam, as Virginia Slim took lead and STL blockers Specs Offender and Zombie Jesus found themselves alone against a full Homicide pack; Slim doubled Homicide's score with a 16-0. Unfortunately for Homicide, STL erased all of that quickly with a huge 29-0 powerjam to follow, and by the break St. Louis was cruising on the very edge of a triple digit lead, 130-31.

A 12-0 for Bat Wing on the second half opener pushed that lead over 100 at 142-31. Harm City had slightly better luck pulling lead jammer status early in the half, allowing them to stick a little closer on a jam-to-jam basis. But with 15 minutes to play and St. Louis up 178-53, STL's defense went nearly lights out on Homicide, stuffing their jammers on a very impressive game-closing 83-3 run to claim a 205-point victory. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall

Puget Sound Outcasts 234, Connecticut Death Quads 95 -- Coming off a tight three-point win against Race City on Saturday, the Connecticut Death Quads met a much tougher opponent on the track to start Sunday in the Puget Sound Outcasts, who'd given the undefeated New York Shock Exchange a run to the last jam Saturday night. Puget Sound dominated both periods, getting lead in nearly every jam their jammer didn’t start in the box (and even a few of those) and rotating through their stable jammer rotation of mostly Hollywood and Scott Slamilton with dashes of Quadzilla and Barry Mantletoe. Puget Sound also soundly owned the front of the pack when appropriate. Halftime saw the lead just shy of three digits at Puget Sound 143, Death Quads 45.
 
The first jam of the second half looked to be a new bout for the Death Quads as Cirkle Jerk took the jammer line and, with three of his blockers in the box, managed to steal lead from Hollywood and score a point before calling off the jam. For the rest of the second period, Connecticut’s scoring depended primarily on Puget Sound’s jammers being in the box. A pile up in jam 3 involving two Death Quads and Puget Sound’s jammer Hollywood “Chuck” Berry, made it look like all three were in jam-calling injuries, but Hollywood, hurt, put his hands on his hips and, not lead, succeeded in calling off the jam in addition to earning whatever penalty caused the pileup. This landed him 2 minutes in the box and 3 jams on the bench as Scott Slamilton took his star in the box. Pastor of Muppets picked up 20 points for the Death Quads in his solo 2 minutes on the track in jam 4 bringing the score to 147-66 favoring Puget.

The remainder of the second half the Death Quads continued to score primarily when Puget Sound’s jammers sat in the penalty box. Puget Sound also took advantage of Connecticut’s penalty trouble with big jams like jam 13, a 24-0 for Hollywood. That jam rolled the two century mark for the Outcasts while the Death Quads never hit 3 digits. Jammer rotation through the box made for long jams, many going the full two minutes. Big hitters from Puget Sound like Radillac and Grim Streeper tired out the short Connecticut roster. Even after taking a pounding as jammers, skaters like Fro Serious came back to the pack and continued to play hard. Quadzilla, a skilled force in the Puget Sound pack, finished out the last jam against Cirkle Jerk on the jammer line earning lead and playing a safe but solid last jam until the clock ran out. Considering the long jams and short roster, Connecticut did well keeping the second period to a score of 91-50 for Puget, though Puget Sound still won by 139 overall. -- Bitches Bruze

New York Shock Exchange 182, Dallas Deception 46 -- This one started close, but it wasn't long until New York established control. Although NYSE pulled lead jammer status on the opening five jams of the bout, Dallas jammers were right on their heels to force quick calls in narrow jams that went 3-0, 3-0, 2-0, 0-0 and 2-1 to New York. That made it 10-1 about seven minutes into the game before New York was finally able to lock down on a Dallas jammer, with a tough pack of Abe Drinkin, Vader and Jonathan R all over Dallas' Ninja Please; Ninja was finally forced into a major track cut and New York's Ladies' Knight dropped a big 18-0 to give New York a solid lead at 28-1. Dallas was forced to call their first timeout when Ronnie Mako added a 9-0 on the other side of the jam-spanning penalty on Ninja and put New York up 37-1 with 19:40 left in the first half.

From there on out, it was all New York. Dallas didn't get their first lead jammer until Archie Nemesis pulled lead on jam 9 with about 18 minutes in the half, but he was forced to call at 0-0. Dallas finally broke into double digits on jam 17 at 77-10, by which time there were only five minutes left in the half. All in all, Dallas only scored on four jams in the first half, and New York was up 90-10 at the break.

Dallas' best sequence of the game would come with about 18 minutes left, when New York's Ronnie Mako sat on the first NYSE jammer penalty of the game; Archie Nemesis went 5-0 and Ninja Please added a 15-0 to follow. Still, though, Dallas was way down at 117-32, and it wouldn't get much better for them before it was all over. NYSE's lead once again climbed over 100 points with just under 9 minutes to play at 145-42, and they finished with a 136-point win at 182-46. -- Justice Feelgood Marshall