Rat City Rollergirls

Now we're cooking. May saw a couple of upsets, but most of what we learned came from the closeness of games that went the right way.

There's a lot more action in the Power Rankings this month as teams start to kick off their seasons in earnest. We’ve got our first ranking debut of the year, and another team returning after a lengthy absence. Want to skip the reasoning and jump straight to rankings? Go on then.

RICHMOND, CA -- The fifth place game of the WFTDA West Region playoffs was predicted by the opening seeding, as #5 Rocky Mountain took on #6 Rat City -- but Rat City nudged Rocky Mountain out of that position, winning a defensive and often very slowly paced battle 196-171.

RICHMOND, CA -- In a consolation bout at Saturday's WFTDA West Region Playoffs, 6 seed Rat City slowly wore down 10 seed Sacred, who played with a lot of heart -- and a lot of support from the crowd -- but were unable to match the Seattle's team's talent.

RICHMOND, CA -- 9W Wasatch had a tough ask at the start of day two of the West playoff. Having lost out to Angel City in the first bout of day one, their first-round consolation battle was with 6W Rat City, who lost out in a tight encounter with Bay Area in the final bout of the day.

RICHMOND, CA -- The closing bout of Bay of Reckoning was a rematch of one of the closest bouts of the year so far -- Bay Area's five-point last jam victory in Seattle in June. The game left a lot of unfinished business between these two teams, and more than a few question marks next to the 3 seed vs 6 seed quarterfinal than would normally be expected given the ranking disparity.

RICHMOND, CA -- This weekend the WFTDA roadshow moves on to California's Bay Area for Bay of Reckoning -- the 2012 West region playoffs. While it's almost possible to fill in two Championships teams in all the other regions before a whistle is blown, the West is wide open.

BALTIMORE, MD -- In the first two meetings between Rat City (#6 DNN, 6W WFTDA) and Charm City (#7 DNN, 4E WFTDA), the games were closely matched nearly from start to finish, but in Saturday's night Round 3, Rat City scored a knockout in the first 5 minutes - and then kept punching.

Top WFTDA / MRDA Action (6) Rat City @ DC (Friday), (6) Rat City @ (7) Charm City (Saturday), (19) Steel City vs (6) Rat City (Sunday) -- The third edition of a unique East / West rivalry takes place in Baltimore this weekend as the key bout in a three-game trip for Rat City.