Rollercon: #3 Denver Bashes #13 Minnesota, 269-84
LAS VEGAS, NV -- In the last WFTDA sanctioned bout at Rollercon 2012, #3 Denver picked up their second win of the weekend, taking advantage of a consistently full Minnesota penalty box and riding particularly strong performances from Sandrine Rangeon with the star and Ariel Quigley and Tracy Akers in the pack to an enormous 269-84 final margin.
The Mile High Club finished their RollerCon with a 2-0 record after beating Rose City last night, with Minnesota 0-3 after their Friday loss to Rocky Mountain (139-114) and loss to Philly (189-149) the previous afternoon.
Denver slightly had the better of a tense and surprisingly penalty free first five or so minutes, but when Juke Boxx was boxed on a major cut in her first jam, Rangeon punched Denver into a 30-2 lead with a 20-0. That was when things started to go from bad to worse for Minnesota; while they mostly kept their jammers out of the box, they were plagued with pack penalties for the majority of the game.
Two jams later, Julie Adams had a big jam of her own to make that lead 53-2 as she breezed through the Minnesota pack, slipping through the uncovered inside line time and and time again. 13 minutes had gone in the half when Juke Boxx came out again to put Minnesota's first points on the board since the opening jams with a quick 4-0.
That wasn't to be the start of a revival for Minnesota though, as they filled their box letting Denver pull into a 113-6 lead during an period of roughly ten minutes when they had a maximum of two blockers on the track, making life all too easy for the Mile High Club. That 60-0 run was halted when Minnesota scored one point and three with consecutive lead jam calls with five minutes left in the period, and that finally took Minnesota into double figures, 113-10 behind.
L'exi Cuter took Minnesota to 19 two jams later when Caitlin Krause was boxed for the Mile High Club, but she was boxed herself after scoring 9. That let Sharpless close out the period unopposed, with Denver leading 137-19.
Minnesota's penalty trouble continued into the second half – after a little over five minutes their box was finally empty for the first time since early in the first half, and it was enough for them to put up their first points of the half across four jams as they maintained a full blocking complement. By that point they were still down 164-26, though; a mini rally for Minnesota saw them add another 7 as they kept the penalties mostly under control, but not without Denver showing some excellent pack speed and definition control to pick up some points of their own and ensure their jammers could get through untouched.
With 12 minutes to go Rangeon went down hurt following a sharp hit to the chest just as she was called on a major cut. Fannie Tanner started behind a micropack to get Minnesota's quickest lead call and made it 181-47 before Sharpless -- sitting for the injured Rangeon -- came out of the box. Harmony Killerbruise then took advantage of a rare numerical advantage for Minnesota on the track to take her team past 50 – and all the way up to a 181-66 deficit when Adams was boxed on a cut major.
Minnesota got lead in the next jam, but gave up a lot of points on a strange jam -- Medusa was called lead jammer but didn't seem to realize it, getting lapped multiple times for the duration of a jam that went 30-8.
L'exi then struggled as Denver pushed their score to 240 before passing the star -- but not 40 feet after taking the star, Scarmen Hellectra was boxed in a major cut after being hit across the apex. That power jam saw the score sitting at 263 before Julie Adams finished the scoring off with Denver winning 269-84.
