Fort Wayne, IN

By Whacks Poetic

Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls, the 9 seed from Bloomington, Indiana, were looking to improve on their previous performance earlier this year against third seed, Arch Rival Roller Girls from St. Louis, Missouri in today’s 12 pm bout. The team from Indiana had lost to Arch Rival earlier in the season to the tune of 251-189. While they had moments of greatness, Bleeding Heartland wasn’t playing consistently well and Arch took the game with a commanding score of 347-121.

The game started with two jams going Bleeding Heartland’s way. Kaka Caliente and Terror d’Bits both picked up lead jammer status and put their team ahead 12-0 before Arch Rival could counter-strike on the scoreboard. Once Arch Rival started scoring, however, they were hard to stop, putting up 82 points in the next five jams and keeping Bleeding Heartland’s side of the penalty box nearly full with numerous blocker penalties and 2 penalties on Bleeding Heartland’s jammer Terror d’Bits.

© Bob Dunnell

In jam seven, Arch Rival jammer, Brickyard, went to the box on a lowblock allowing Terror d’Bits to finally get out and score some points for Grand Raggidy for the first time in 3 jams. After the jam, the score stood at 82-19 for Arch Rival. Arch Rival managed to successfully challenge the low block call on Brickyard, removing her from the penalty box, and allowing them to start the next jam with Smarty McFly on the jammer line. Arch Rival continued their scoring run, racking up another 47 points before Ohio managed to stem the tide and Aceta Menacin’ tore out of the penalty box and picked up 5 points before Arch Rival jammer, Brickyard, called it off.

The Bloomington fans erupted in appreciation and Bleeding Heartland stepped it up a notch with Nuck L. Sammie picking up lead in the next jam and Terror d’Bits putting up 19 points on a power jam a few minutes later. The energy was shortlived with Smarty McFly managing to pick up 9 points while Kaka Caliente was stuck in the pack A momentary lapse in focus in the subsequent jam by Terror d’Bits meant she placed her foot out of bounds while taking the outside line around an Arch Rival blocker before returning both feet entirely onto the track. Her track cut allowed Mighty Mighty Boston to pick up 15 points on the power jam for the Arch Rival Roller Girls. At the end of the first half, the score favored Arch Rival 166-50.

Bleeding Heartland started the second half with a spring in their step, drawing a cut off of Arch Rival's Mighty Mighty Boston in the first jam. Nuck L. Sammie put up 18 points for the Bloomington team, the last three of which she had to race against Mighty Mighty Boston to the back of the pack. The next jam Arch Rival jammer South City Shiner was trapped in the pack for the entire two minutes while Aceta Menacin’ put 15 points on the board. Arch Rival called a timeout following these two jams and went on to dominate the rest of the game including a 43-point jam by Brickyard with Nuck L. Sammie in the box for a low block and revolving set of two blockers in the box for Bleeding Heartland.

The score stood at 256-84 with 15 minutes to go in the game and Bleeding Heartland took a timeout hoping it would work for them the way it had for Arch Rival earlier in the period. They did manage to slow the scoring by the St. Louis team for the remainder of the game and won the last two jams 29-0 when Smarty McFly picked up a track cut and an insubordination for failing to leave the track for a penalty.

"Today, as the number nine seed we went up against the number 3 seed, the eleventh ranked team in the world and it was great to see that they played like the 11th seed in the world and we played until the very last minute," Lord Seitan, Bleeding Heartland coach, said. :We made that clear when we won that last jam. We’re not done. For the rest of the tournament we’re saying game on!"

At the end of sixty minutes, Arch Rival finished the game 226 points ahead of their competitor with the final score being 347-121.

"We really cut down our penalties," Arch Rival coach The Saint. "In yesterday’s game we had 45 and we kept it under 30 this game. Just the fact that we had people on the track helped us a lot and we stayed in our walls. When we stay in our walls, good things happen.”

Bleeding Heartland came into the tournament in 9th place and will be fighting to retain that placing in tomorrow’s 10am game against the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls. Arch Rival will be playing Wasatch Roller Derby at 8pm tonight for a chance to challenge for fifth place in tomorrow’s 2 pm game.

Final Score

(3) Arch Rival Roller Girls 347
(9) Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls 121