East Consolation: 10E London Drops 6E Boston, 142-95

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Sat Sep 17 2011 9:25pm

BALTIMORE, MD -- 10 seed London continued the best run ever by any bottom seed in a WFTDA tournament by landing their second seeding upset of the weekend in a convincing win over 6 seed Boston, 142-95. London continued to rely on a trio of Kamikaze Kitten, Stefanie Mainey and Vagablonde with some support from Ninjette on the jam line; Boston rode Sugar Hits, Ivanna Shankabitch, Lil' Paine and Claire D. Way.

Boston's Claire D. Way got lead and a 3-0 on the first jam of the bout to put Boston up to start, but Boston's jammer Lil' Paine hit the box in the second jam on a track cut before completing her opening pass; London's Vagablonde picked up 10 before committing her own back block and handing the powerjam back to Boston. Though Paine couldn't pick up any points before time expired in that one, the next jam started with Boston jammer Sugar Hits unopposed on the line -- and she did capitalize with an 8-0 that flipped the lead for the third time in three jams, 11-10 Boston after 5 minutes.

Two jams later, London's Vagablonde and Boston's Lil' Paine both hit the box in a complicated jam that finally ended after two minutes at 10-8 for London, leaving a 23-20 score favoring Boston and about ten minutes gone in the first half. London's Stefanie Mainey had just enough unopposed time to pick up lead jammer on the next one, but back-blocked her way to the box during her opening pass -- which left time for Boston to keep their lead at 33-21 on the return of Paine.

London finally retook the lead on a 9-0 with about 11 minutes left in the first half as Ninjette sliced through twice -- London had a 40-34 lead, and picked up another lead jammer status for Kamikaze Kitten while Sugar Hits had trouble with London blockers Axis of Evon and Grievous Bodily Charm. That extended London's lead to 47-34, and Vagablonde kept Boston off the board with a 1-0. London took lead jammer status fairly consistently for the last ten minutes of the half and pushed their lead out to 61-41 going into the last jam, where Kamikaze Kitten got London a big frame with a 14-0 that gave the UK crew a 75-41 advantage going into halftime.

After being blanked for two first-half jams, a 2-1 jam for Ivanna Shankabitch over London's Stefanie Mainey made the score 80-43 with 26:37 left to play - Boston took their second timeout there. It was London that did better immediately after the stoppage, pulling ahead to 97-43 over the next two jams, but Boston's Sugar Hits landed a critical 15-0 that sliced a bit off of the 54-point London lead at 97-58 with 21 minutes left.

With the score 101-58 and 20 minutes left, a brutal full-length jam between Vagablonde and Ivana Shankabitch ended with Shank getting the better of it on the scoreboard with a 3-0 but ending it in the box. Kamikaze Kitten took full advantage of that powerjam, leaping the apex multiple times and bouncing off of Boston's blockers for a 25-0 that made it 126-61 London with only about 16 minutes left in the game.

Although Boston immediately answered with Sugar Hits dropping a natural 20-0 with the help of Etta Maims and Anna Wrecks'Ya shutting down London's Kamikaze Kitten and moving the score to 126-81 with 12 minutes to play, that was the last time that Boston looked like they had a chance to win. A couple of jams later, London's Stefanie Mainey put on a clinic in time-killing -- and momentum-killing -- against the speedy Claire D. Way, managing to keep Claire from accelerating for nearly a full minute for a 0-0 that was fully in London's favor and left the score at 128-83 with 8 minutes left. From there, London just needed to not give up any big jams, and they succeeded; when it was over, London had dropped another official upset, 142-95.

London now has a chance to finish in 5th place in the tournament when they take on 5E Montreal in the 5th place bout at 1pm; Boston heads to the 7th place match to face 8E Dutchland.