Fort Wayne, IN

Grand Raggidy finishes 9th, Bleeding Heartland takes 10th

By Whacks Poetic

The final day of 2013 WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Fort Wayne started with the teams who came in seeded ninth and tenth battling for ninth place. The Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls from Bloomington, Indiana, were looking to maintain their place while Grand Raggidy Roller Girls from Grand Rapids, Michigan, were hoping to improve their position by one spot. The two teams have met three times previously with Grand Raggidy having the Bloomington team’s number on two of those occasions. This game was no different, with the team from Michigan beating Bleeding Heartland 186-134 and taking ninth place.

The first half started and ended in the same way, with jammer penalties. In between, however, there were always two jammers on the track. The first jam began with Garden Ho lined up on the jammer line for Grand Raggidy facing Terror d’Bits for Bleeding Heartland. Prior to making it to the first corner, Garden Ho found herself heading to the box on a back block penalty. Terror d’Bits quickly got lead thereafter and went on to put up 23 points for the Bloomington team. The second jam saw a battle of the 44’s with Shotgun Shell on the line for Grand Raggidy and Nuck L. Sammie beside her for Bleeding Heartland. Nuck L. Sammie picked up lead and Shotgun Shell, in her hurry to get out of the pack, cut the track. Nuck L. Sammie grabbed a quick 5 points and then called it off. The third jam started with Shotgun Shell in the box and Kaka Caliente jamming for Bleeding Heartland. Some great blocking from the Grand Raggidy blockers meant Kaka Caliente only picked up 6 points before Shotgun Shell got out of the box. The third jam ended with the score reading 38-0 for Bleeding Heartland.

© Bob Dunnell

Grand Raggidy then began to climb back. Ultra Fox managed to pick up the first lead jammer for Grand Raggidy and her first of seven in the opening 30 minutes in the fourth jam and put up the first points for the Michigan team winning the jam 3-1. Lucy Morals followed up Ultra Fox’s performance by picking up a lead jammer status of her own and grabbing 2 points before being knocked to the outside and calling the jam off. Ultra Fox, with her second time with the star, repeated her performance picking up lead jammer status and 2 points.

Bleeding Heartland took a risk putting out Dar E Eryn with the star, she’d not yet jammed this tournament. The risk paid off with her picking up lead against Shotgun Shell but the 4-1 pack advantage for Grand Raggidy proved too much and Bleeding Heartland only managed to gain one point prior to calling it off. Lucy Morals managed to pick up 15 points while Terror d’Bits was contained by Grand Raggidy’s excellent recycling. With 9 minutes left in the first half, Mona Vaydid took the star for the first time for Grand Raggidy, picking up lead and 3 points with a 4-2 pack advantage for her team.

Terror d’Bits picked up her team’s first lead jammer status in five jams and scored 6. Grand Raggidy had been working hard, though, and had closed the early gap of 38-0 to 67-48 with 5 minutes left on the period clock. In the final jam of the first half starting with one second left on the penalty clock, Grand Raggidy got their first power jam of the game with Bleeding Heartland jammer Terror d’Bits going to the box for a track cut. In a suiting fashion, given how well Ultra Fox played in the first half, she put her team into the lead going into the half 77-73 with Terror d’Bits still in the penalty box at the end of the jam.

The second half began with Terror d’Bits standing in the box and Ultra Fox on the jammer line. Grand Raggidy had a 3-2 pack advantage. Ultra Fox--now eight for eight--picked up 3 points before calling it off. Bleeding Heartland was ready to answer back as Nuck L. Sammie picked up lead in the second jam of the half and picked up 4 points while gracefully spinning around the Grand Raggidy wall. Kaka Caliente got out of the pack first on the next jam but hadn’t passed everyone legally in bounds so lead jammer status was still available for Shotgun Shell. Shotgun Shell got lead and called it quickly but not before Kaka Caliente got 3 points making it a tie game at 80-80 with 27 minutes remaining.

Grand Raggidy's Mona Vaydid broke the tie scoring 18 points with Terror d’Bits being terrorized by the Grand Raggidy blockers. Grand Raggidy continued to get lead but scoring was slim until Nuck L. Sammie went to the box, allowing Lucy Morals to pick up lead in the eighth jam of the second half and put Grand Raggidy over the century mark on the scoreboard, 113-83 with 20 minutes to go. Jam eleven saw Nuck L. Sammie earn lead for the first time for Bleeding Heartland in 9 jams and put up a quick 4 points for her team. With fifteen minutes to go, the score stood at 121-99 for Grand Raggidy. Nuck L. Sammie in the next jam was boxed for a track cut and Ultra Fox extended Grand Raggidy’s lead by 19 points dealing with a 4-2 pack in Bleeding Heartland’s favor.

With a slew of jammer penalties on both sides, the scored crawled forward and stood at 162-134 with two minutes left on the clock. In the final jam of the game, Ultra Fox picked up her twelfth lead jammer status as Kaka Caliente was sent off the track for back blocking. Ultra Fox skated cleanly and quickly through the pack and put up 20 points before calling it off after the period clock wound down. The final score was 186-134 for Grand Raggidy Roller Girls, who take ninth place in the tournament.

“Overall, Grand Raggidy is going to take away the great learning experience we had playing the two great teams of Wasatch and Rose City," said Kelsey Slammer. "It just solidified that while we just got bumped up into Division 1 before this tournament, we really belong here. It’s going to be an incredibly next season.”

“We’re the smallest team to ever make it to this tournament and to send a team to the tournament this year we really proud of that," said Grand Raggidy's Bombshell Shock. "We showed the world that size doesn’t matter.”

Final Score

(9) Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls 134
(10) Grand Raggidy Roller Girls 186