East Playoffs: 8E Carolina Dismantles 9E Dutchland, 304-75

By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Fri Sep 28 2012 11:59am

BURLINGTON, VT -- In the opening bout of the East Region playoffs, 9 seed Dutchland -- sporting a considerably different roster than the one that appeared at last year's playoffs in Baltimore -- had all kinds of trouble against a much more tournament-experienced 8 seed Carolina. A single 20-8 power jam accounted for over a quarter of Dutchland's points in the entire game as they went down to a overwhelming 304-75 loss.

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Dutchland's defense was easily picked off by Carolina's offense on all sides -- and Dutchland's offense was nearly nonexistent, leading to huge jammer penalty problems. Dutchland got hit with a crippling 13 jammer penalties in the game (against 5 for Carolina); a few big hits from bruising blocker Treasure Chest and a game (though penalty-heavy) jamming performance from Skid Ho were Dutchland's only bright points in their second-worst loss ever.

Carolina took lead on six of the game's first seven jams and won all but one of them to go up 38-7 over the opening ten minutes, utilizing particularly effective work in the pack from veterans Jesse King and MC Fyte.

Dutchland finally got their first power jam there as CRG lost lead jammer Pretty Reckless to the box; Dutchland jammer Bela Lowblowski managed to turn passive Dutchland offense into a badly needed 20-8. Having narrowed it a bit to 46-27, Dutchland called their first timeout with 18:36 still left in the first half. Skid Ho kept the Dutchland rally going with 2-0 on the other side of the timeout, making it 46-29.

But from that point on, the game was nearly completely Carolina. With the score 51-29 at 15:00, there was a bit of a confusing jam conclusion with Dutchland lead jammer Twisted Scizzors fouled her way to the box exactly as the jam was called off; that went 0-0 but set up a full minute for Holly Wanna Crackya to storm through a glacial pack multiple times on a 24-0. That put Carolina comfortably in front 75-29 with 12 minutes in the first half.

Dutchland got a tough break a couple of jams later when their jammer Twisted Scizzors was boxed on a questionable track cut at the top of the pack -- but that jam got a lot worse for the orange and black when Carolina jammer Thrashley blew up the morning crowd by jumping the apex in nearly the exact same location on two consecutive passes. After that 22-0 to Carolina, the game was solidly in Carolina's hands at 101-29.

Scizzors would remain in the box for two more jams, ending with a somewhat comical start to jam 17. Both Carolina's Holly Wanna Crackya and Scizzors were stuck in the box serving penalties for the first 40 seconds of the jam while the pack stood at the jammer line waiting for one to be released. When Scizzors came out of the box first, she quickly broke through the scrum -- only to get immediately boxed again on a false start, since the jammer whistle had never been blown. It ended 6-0 to Holly and left Carolina up 115-33. A few jams later, the half closed at 122-37.

Even when Dutchland got a rare lead jammer call on the opening jam of the second half, it still went south rapidly as Skid Ho cut her way to the box. That jam went 24-5 to Carolina, and Carolina's lead hit triple digits at 146-43.

At that point the bout went from a garden-variety blowout to a slaughter as Carolina put up big power jam over big power jam -- 29-0 to Pretty Reckless was soon followed by a brutal six-jam 101-1 run for Carolina. Ginger Clobbers cracked the 300 point mark for Carolina on the last jam of the game, ending action at a dominant 304-75 for Carolina. Holly Wanna Crackya put up a big 127 points to lead scoring.

Carolina gets to go up against top seed Gotham at 4pm, while Dutchland meets the loser of London / Montreal at 10am Saturday.