Kalamazoo, MI

Santa Cruz comes out strong against NEO

By Vile Love It

Fans knew this bout was going to be different when the Santa Cruz Derby Girls (seed 1, ranked #42) from Santa Cruz, California, set up for the first jam on the pivot line in their second bout of the tournament against NEO Roller Derby (4 seed, ranked #51) from Akron, Ohio.

Santa Cruz won their first game against the Tri-City Roller Girls in an overtime jam, while NEO had won against the Carolina Roller Girls. Both teams had rested up, recharged and were ready to go.

“After yesterday’s close call we really worked at maintaining our focus. Our goal is to play for number 1 in Milwaukee. And after yesterday we had a check and refocused on working our butts off,” said Santa Cruz’s Liv N. Letdie. “Our main focus today was keeping our composure, making sure we had a plan at all times, not getting frantic or desperate and making NEO adapt to us.”

Santa Cruz took an early 18-0 lead, but then jammer Bettie the Kid (#20) hit the box on a low block penalty after tripping NEO’s Mary Kaos (#46N2). Mary pulled her team into the lead by scoring 24 points before Bettie the Kid was released. By the end of the jam it was 28-18.

But the Santa Cruz blockers shut down NEO’s Twin Pistol (#357) in the next jam and limited her to 4 points while Queen Litigious (#41) collected 24 points and retook the lead. At 10 minutes into the bout it was a 10 point game: 42-32. Not too long after, while the same jammers were on the track, Twin Pistol hit the penalty box and Queen Litigious grabbed 20 points to push her team further into the lead.

Santa Cruz was able to increase their lead throughout the period through solid defense and power jams. They gave up only two power jams compared to NEO’s 4 and were able to hold NEO scoreless 45 percent of the time. The penalty box leaned in Santa Cruz’s favor as well; they only sat for 10 minutes the entire period compared to NEO’s 19 minutes.

But that didn’t mean that NEO didn’t make Santa Cruz work for every point they earned. With just under 4 minutes left in the half, NEO’s Mary Kaos sat in the box on back-to-back penalties and between Santa Cruz jammers Queen Litigious and Dusty Roadz (#299) Santa Cruz put up an additional 33 points and the California team headed into the halftime with a solid lead (142-65).

Both teams came back from the half with renewed intensity, but the penalty box claimed its players throughout the period. It seemed that as soon as NEO began to rally, they would lose players to the box. In the second half of the period they racked up 5 jammer penalties. At times the NEO blockers were able to limit the damage done by the Santa Cruz jammers but the momentum was clearly in Santa Cruz’s favor.

Midway through the second period, NEO rallied enough to pull to within 63 points of Santa Cruz but the penalties limited their ability to be effective on the track and Santa Cruz pulled ahead and brought in one of the few comfortable leads of the tournament.

“Powers jams made the difference. Our jammers went to the box more often. That is where the majority of the point difference came from,” said NEO Coach Rich. “Santa Cruz executed the basics better than we did today.”

Final score

(1) Santa Cruz Derby Girls 236
(5) NEO Roller Derby 135