Boston (#7) advances over DC (#10)

By Vile Love It

The Boston Derby Dames (#7), Boston, MA controlled the first half of their bout against the DC Rollergirls (#10), Washington, DC. From the first whistle until halftime they owned the track.

Photo by Manish Gosalia

They commanded lead jammer status and held DC scoreless until 12 minutes into the first period when DC managed to score two points. It wasn't that DC's jammers spent a lot of time in the box, but Boston's blockers were able to shut them down and Boston's jammers called off the jam at the perfect time.

Boston held DC to only 50 points for the entire first half and all of those points were scored in the second part of that period.

But the DC that came out after halftime seemed like a very different team than the first period DC. They had extra fire in their wheels and found some things that worked.

“Going into halftime we thought the momentum of the game had changed into our favor and we wanted to keep that up and really lock down on the things we were doing well. We really focused on making up the points,” said DC's Lois Slain. “We've always struggled with the first 15 minutes of a game and it just took us a while to get our walls tight, and once we got our defense locked down and our offense on point it became a much tighter game. Unfortunately it was too late to make up that deficit.”

Early in the second period, Boston jammer Maya Mangleyou sat in the penalty box for a minute, a couple of times, giving DC a chance to rack up some extra points. And that would have helped if DC's jammers had stayed out of the box.

DC chipped away at the score and Boston kept up the pressure. DC made use of some power jams, but so did Boston.

With about five minutes left in the game DC took advantage of a power jam and scored 14 points to pull within 45. For a minute it looked possible that DC could continue the momentum and possibly overtake Boston to win the game. But then DC's Marion Barrycuda took back to back trips to the penalty box, and Boston capitalized on it with a 30-point and 24-point jam.

All in all, Boston held DC scoreless in 30 jams during the entire game and they earned lead jam about 70% of the time compared to DC's 30%.

Boston Derby Dames (#7) 226
DC Rollergirls (#10) 131