Fort Wayne, IN

Wasatch dominates Grand Raggidy

By Whacks Poetic

In the second game of 2013 WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Fort Wayne, two teams took the track that have never played each other, nor have they had any common opponents this year. Wasatch Roller Derby from Salt Lake City, Utah came into the tournament as the 7 seed and their opponents, Grand Raggidy Roller Girls from Grand Rapids, Michigan were the 10 seed. Those rankings proved to be accurate as Wasatch pulled ahead in the first jam and never looked back, finishing the game with a score of 389-61.

Moonraker, jamming for Wasatch, in the first jam managed to put 5 points on the scoreboard against Lucy Morals’ 0, her Grand Raggidy counterpart. The teamwork of Wasatch was most evident throughout the bout. Wasatch’s blockers managed to trick the Grand Raggidy jammer into jumping on the track in the wrong place, sending the jammers to the penalty box for track cuts multiple times throughout the bout.The recycling of the blockers on Grand Raggidy’s jammer often ensured that Grand Raggidy never completed their initial pass, even when they weren’t being sent to the box. Wasatch has also trained a group of smart jammers who seemed to be aware of where to re-enter the track to avoid the dreaded cut call.

© Bob Dunnell

The second jam saw a jammer switchout in the penalty box as Ali3 Kitt3n was called on a rare Wasatch jammer track cut and Grand Raggidy jammer, Shotgun Shell, was sent to the box after only managing to put up 3 points on her power jam. After two jams, Wasatch had gotten lead twice and the score was 25-3 in their favor. Grand Raggidy jammer, Ultra Fox, who proved to be Grand Raggidy’s most successful jammer of the game, managed to grab her first lead jammer in the third jam scoring 5 points before calling it off. Wasatch then proceeded to dominate the pack and score and the second 15 minutes of the first half was a various combination of Wasatch jammers, Moonraker, Ali3 Kitt3n, Bunz Bunny and Harry Slaughter racking up the points as Grand Raggidy jammers spent eight jams in a row starting or ending the jam in the penalty box. The half ended with Grand Raggidy jammer, Xtreme Tac just getting out of the box and the score at 181-38 for the team from Utah.

The second half picked up where the first had left off with Grand Raggidy jammers starting or ending each jam in the box for the first four jams. This allowed Wasatch to mount a massive lead with the score standing at 274-38 before Ultra Fox got lead for the Michigan team in the fifth jam and managed to squeak in a 4-0 pass before calling it off. After this jam, both teams began to experiment more with their jammer rotations and Vishus Trollope and Garden Ho took to the line for Wasatch and Grand Raggidy, respectively. Grand Raggidy looked to be doing better keeping their jammers out of the box, but also had a run of three jams where their jammer never completed her initial pass until Ultra Fox successfully passed the star to Shotgun Shell. This seemed to rejuvenate the skaters from Michigan who then kept Wasatch jammer, Vishus Trollope, to only 10 points on a two-minute jam. The last eight minutes of the game looked like a very different match up with Grand Raggidy taking lead three times in a row and putting up 19 points, almost a full third of what they’d scored in the bout up until then.

“What helped is that we switched up some of our jammers," said Grand Raggidy blocker, Kelsey Slammer. "We realized that their blocking and defense was really high and that our best jammer getting through was our most aggressive jammer and so we switched up to bring in a couple other people to jam who are more aggressive skaters to kind of compensate for that”

The game ended with Grand Raggidy able to hold their heads up high for how they adapted to the great play of Wasatch’s blockers and a score reading 389-61.

Wasatch was excited to be facing 2 seed Montreal Roller Derby later that night.

Co-Captain Ego Bruiser states, “We came in to play Grand Raggidy and tried not to be too overconfident and really kept our game tick-tight and clean and we’re really looking forward next to playing against Montreal and doing the same thing.”

Grand Raggidy will be facing the loser of the Arch Rival Roller Girls versus Ohio Roller Girls bout tomorrow at 10am in the consolation bracket.

Final Score

(7) Wasatch Roller Derby 389
(10) Grand Raggidy Roller Derby 61