Milwaukee, WI

By Shelly Shankya

The Jet City Rollergirls came on the track and put a heat-seeking hurting on the Santa Cruz Derby Girls during the Championship game for Division 2; with three power jams for the Bombers during the first five jams, Jet City started with a comfortable lead, 53-15. Santa Cruz repeatedly clawed their way back, however, and the game would ultimately come down to a single point.

During jam three, Santa Cruz jammer Pippi Hardsocking attempted a star pass but handed the panty off to Shamrock N. Roller who was not the pivot. The confusion on the track mounted, as Pippi was called to the box for an illegal star pass; likewise, Shamrock went to the box amidst the confusion, her penalty for two minutes: one an illegal procedure, the other an insubordination.

“We’re here to show that Division 2 skaters and teams are strong enough to contend on the same level as the Division 1 teams,” Jet City team captain Pippy Longstalker said. “We’re setting the level high, and we’re commanding it on the track.”

In total the Santa Cruz Derby Girls suffered from six jammer penalties, making their comeback from a 50-point deficit that much more impressive. Blockers Shamrock N. Roller and Foxee Firestorm held Jet City jammers to single-digit gains. Blocker Cora Zone came storming out of the penalty box to block Bomber jammer Ivana Hercha to the outside and pull her back nearly half of the track. The half ended with Jet City Bombers slightly ahead of the Boardwalk Bombshells, despite Santa Cruz’s late run for lead, 115-100.

The Jet City helmets pronounced “COMMAND IT!,” and they did just that in the second half of the game.

“One of our skater sent a YouTube video as a motivator to the rest of our team, from an ex-MMA fighter, and he kept screaming ‘command it!’ That kind of stuck,” Jet City skaters Longstalker and Deadline said. “We started telling each other to ‘command it’ at the first D2 playoff. We didn’t know those teams, and we’d never played Santa Cruz either. We knew that today we had to ‘command it,’ we had to make it happen. That’s the mental part of this game.”

As if a repeat of the first jams of the contest, Santa Cruz jammer Queen Litigious went to the box on a forearm major, affording the Bomber jammer a 25-point power jam to reassert their lead over the ladies from California, 140-100. From the third jam on, Santa Cruz went blow-for-blow with Jet City, accruing consistent points to bring the game within seven points, 158-151. Santa Cruz used one of their timeouts after their momentum switch, but the pause in action resulted in a nine-jam lead jammer run for Jet City during which time the Bombers pulled away by 20 points.

A forearm penalty from Whoa! Nellie for Jet City in the nineteenth jam gave Pippi Hardsocking lead and a 14-point power jam for Santa Cruz Derby Girls. The last eight jams of the game were an intense, frenzied exchange of points as Jet City struggled to maintain their lead over the Boardwalk Bombshells. The penultimate jam saw 41-point scoring jammer ILL Ninja on the line for Jet City against Santa Cruz’s Queen Litigious; Ninja snuck through to grab a quick lead jammer status, but called off the jam too quickly, as Santa Cruz called a timeout to stop the period clock.

“It felt awesome, really good, to be able to score points for my team,” ILL Ninja, the top point-scorer for Jet City said. “We spent a lot of time working together, focusing on teamwork. We realize, we know that we win together and we lose together.”

With 35 seconds on the clock and the score standing at only a six-point differential 187-181, team captain Pippy Longstalker took the star for Jet City, preparing to command the track, the clock, and the scoreboard against Santa Cruz jammer Hellaluna. While Hellaluna managed to get lead jammer, Pippy came through to fight point for point against Hellaluna. When the Santa Cruz jammer lapped Pippy on a knockout from Foxee Firestorm, Hellaluna called off the jam after seeing her lap point. The score, momentarily, read Santa Cruz in the lead at the game’s conclusion. After Jet City’s jam ref called in Pippy’s points, however, the score stood in the Bombers’ favor by one, narrow point, 195-194.

The Jet City Bombers defeated the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Bombshells 195-194 to take home the Championship for the inaugural Division 2 showdown.

Final Score

Jet City Rollergirls (Des Moines #1) 195 - D2 Champion
Santa Cruz Derby Girls (Kalamazoo #1) 194