Kalamazoo, MI

Paper Valley holds back Suburbia

By Vile Love It

The Paper Valley Roller Girls (7 seed, ranked 55), of Appleton, Wisconsin, set the track in stone for Suburbia Roller Derby’s Suburban Brawl (10 seed, ranked 65) and held them scoreless for the first seven minutes of the second bout of the Division 2 Playoffs in Kalamazoo. Suburbia’s jammers visited the penalty box while Paper Valley racked up 72 points.

It would be one of the main themes of the bout: Paper Valley controlled lead jam, the scoreboard and most of the track. The other theme was indicated by the total number of penalty minutes collected by each team. By the end of the 60 minutes, Suburbia had spent 47 minutes in the penalty box; Paper Valley only spent 27 minutes.

“Going into the game our mindset was to stay controlled, stay together and work as a team and to stay out of the box. Unfortunately, penalties were our biggest down fall. And Paper Valley played an exceptional, clean game,” said Suburbia’s Little Loca. “We rallied in the second half because we worked on the basics and when we do that, it works out really well for us.”

Photo by Steve Jurkovic Photography

After a long fight throughout most of the first period where Paper Valley held the lock on lead jam and the scoreboard, Suburbia grabbed lead jam twice in a row and for one long jam, their blockers held captive Paper Valley’s jammer Chop Stickya (#314) in the pack while their jammer picked up 11 points. But it wasn’t a tide-turning event. Nineteen minutes into the first period Paper Valley held a commanding lead, 114-13.

Paper Valley’s jammers were relentless, sometimes taking down 2 of Suburbia’s blockers on their way through the pack. Their blockers, with a size advantage over Suburbia’s skaters, kept Suburbia’s lines in apart while maintain their own solid walls.

But Suburbia’s jammers were scrappy and determined and the scoreboard did not get them down. They popped and weaved through the cycling hits and locked walls of Paper Valley and their determination paid off. At the half Paper Valley had a commanding lead, but Suburbia had managed to bring their score up: 177-40.

Suburbia started the second half off with a bang collecting lead and 4 points in the first jam. In the first 5 jams of the period, Suburbia won lead jam 4 out of 5 jams and brought the score up to 184-52.

At that point, the pack began to bleed blockers to the box and at one point, it was down to 2 Paper Valley blockers and 1 Suburbia blocker while Paper Valley had the lone jammer on the track. At the end of that jam it was 209-52.

Suburbia’s basic derby plan did hold Paper Valley to less points in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to make up the score differential. And in the end, blockers in the box cannot hold back jammers. Paper Valley never let up, but neither did Suburbia.

With five minutes left in the bout, Paper Valley’s jammer took back-to-back trips to the penalty box as Suburbia fought with success to build up their score. With only minutes left in the bout, Suburbia jammers Charlotte Bupowski (#382) and Nail Diamond (#333) had two high-scoring jams and brought the score to 285-107.

Paper Valley’s Kat Von Devious (#191) and Pissy Pistol (#6) answered with their own high-scoring jams and sealed the win for their team.

“We have worked really hard to play a clean game. We tend to be harder on ourselves during practice. We will call each other out. We have a rule that if you get called out by one of your teammates you need to take it and go and learn from it,” said Paper Valley’s Blazin’ Britches. “We are just so excited to be part of this. It’s great to win a bout but we are making history here and we are so happy to be here.”

Final Score

(7) Paper Valley 308
(10)Suburbia 107

Paper Valley moves on to play #2 seed Sac City Rollers at 6 p.m. Friday. Suburbia will take their wheels for another spin in consolation play at 10 a.m. Saturday.