Minnesota (#2) advances to semifinals over Madison (#10)

By Vile Love It

Mad Rollin' Dolls (#10) earned the right to play the Minnesota RollerGirls All Stars (#2) in the final bout of Day 1 by upsetting the Cincinnati Rollergirls (#7) earlier in the day. The teams last met at last year’s North Central tournament and Minnesota won 218-81.

Given the teams' seeding, a blowout favoring Minnesota appeared likely. If you just looked at the score, you might assume that Minnesota was in control the entire game, but Madison came back with a strong showing in the second period.

Photo by David Van Deman

In the first half, Minnesota did stay in control of the pack. They were able to break up Madison’s walls, contain their jammer, and rack up the points, scoring 117 points to Madison’s 37.  But after halftime, Madison was able to adjust their game and it showed. They scored slightly more in the second half than Minnesota, grabbing 88 to Minnesota’s 85. Madison’s walls were stronger and they were able to hold Minnesota’s jammers for longer.

Minnesota owned lead jammer status, grabbing lead 29 times compared to Madison’s 12.  Often the losing team spends more time in the box but it wasn’t the case in this game. The teams' box minutes were almost identical; Minnesota spent 30 minutes in the box while Madison spent 29. Of those minutes three of them were jammer penalties for both teams.

“It had been all summer since we had a win and we are really excited to be able to have pulled that off. We executed a lot of things that we had been working on all summer,” said Minnesota’s Medusa.  “We still have some stuff to work on though.  One of our goals was to stay out of the penalty box more than previous games and I think that had a lot to do with our success.”

The final score of 202-125 did not speak of the intensity or the hard work of players from both teams.  If you were watching the action, but not watching the scoreboard you might have thought it was a much closer game. Minnesota didn’t have that many more high scoring jams than Madison, they were just more successful at shutting down the Madison jammers who often came off the track without scoring a single point. But those 3-point and 4-point jams add up, especially when the other team gets nothing.

“I’m super proud of how we played. We’ve been working hard all summer and I think it showed on the track tonight," said Twisted Halo, Madison’s captain.  “Minnesota is an excellent team.  We stepped it up in the second half, adjusted our game to their game and we did really well.  I couldn’t be happier.”

Minnesota RollerGirls (#2) 202
Mad Rollin' Dolls (#10) 125