Fort Wayne, IN

London Rollergirls squeak past Rose City Rollers

By Whacks Poetic

In a rematch of one this summer’s top level international WFTDA bouts, 4 seed London Rollergirls from London, UK, took on the 5 seed, Rose City Rollers from Portland, Oregon. In their previous game this year, Rose City had emerged victorious with a final score of 198-150. London, however, has been known to learn quickly and adapt mid-season. They were already were looking like they’d learned a lot by the time they traveled back to England after their trip through the Pacific Northwest this summer. We discovered just how much they’d learned today when they beat the Rose City Rollers 193-190 to move onto the semifinals for the 2013 WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs: Fort Wayne edition.

The game from the get-go looked like it was going to be close and the feeling in the air was any and every penalty and point mattered. It was a bout of finesse, with small mistakes making big differences and smart play and teamwork being well rewarded. “Soul crushing” was London’s slogan. Their blockers danced through the pack backwards and forwards, chasing the jammer out, knocking her out of bounds and then drawing her all the way to back again. “Immovable” was Rose City’s catchphrase, their walls often looking dominant and impressive during London power jams and tiring out the London jammers. Both teams managed to force the jammers to work for every point and pass throughout the bout.

Photo by Jeff Sevier

London started off the game with a pair of lead jammer statuses for Kamikaze Kitten and Rogue Runner, scoring 3 and 4 points respectively and managing to get two Rose City blockers placed into the penalty box. In the fifth jam, Rogue Runner never made it out of the pack as Rose City jammer Mutch Mayhem scored 14 points, utilizing her 4-2 blocker advantage in the pack. Rose City switched up their jammer rotation after Licker’N’Split served back-to-back penalties in the middle of the first period. At the end of the first 30 minutes, London Rollergirls were up 105-47 with Rose City Jammers having been sent to the box six times and London jammers being sent only twice.

In the second half, however, Rose City began to claw their way back, being helped in particular by a low block by London Rollergirl Jammer Lexi Lightspeed that allowed Rose City to put up 29 points on a power jam that spanned three jams. An amazing penalty kill by Rose City blockers that kept London jammer Kamikaze Kitten to only 5 points seemed to rejuvenate the Rose City bench and fans and the Portland team began a run of stealing points when London had lead or getting lead themselves. With less than 10 minutes left, Rose took the lead for the first time in the game, 148-147 on a 4-0 jam by Mutch Mayhem. They added 6 more points before a pair of jammer penalties with less than five minutes left allowed London to retake the lead 169-154. That point gain, however, cost London one of their best skaters, Stefanie Mainey, who fouled out with three minutes remaining in the game. Rose City started using their timeouts in order to save period clock time.

With about 30 seconds left on the clock, the score stood at 181-168 for London. Rose City jammer Scald Eagle got lead in the very last jam and it looked like London jammer Kamikaze Kitten was trapped behind yet another immovable Rose City wall and London may lose the game when Kamikaze Kitten took off her helmet cover, faked as if she was going to complete a star pass to London pivot Frightning Bold, skated through the pack and then put the cover back on in order to move onto a scoring pass. In the last 30 seconds of the jam, it was a 4-2 pack advantage for Rose City and Kamikaze Kitten was stuck in the pack once more. The final whistle of the game went as the scoreboard showed 190-189 for Rose City but then the London jammer ref held up four fingers to signal the four points that Kamikaze Kitten had scored while being stuck in the pack and scoreboard changed to show the team from across the pond winning 193-190.

Ballistic Whistle, London Brawling Coach on the faked star pass in the final jam.

“That was Kami’s call. We’d worked on a specific situation in which it’s the right time to do it and Kami identified that was exactly the right situation to do it and she did it.”

Final Score

(4) London Rollergirls 193
(5) Rose City Rollers 190

London will go on to play the winner of Denver versus Cincinnati on Day 2, and Rose City moves to the consolation bracket playing the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls.