Kalamazoo, MI

Paper Valley lights up Burning River

By Vile Love It

In the game leading to the battle for fifth place, the Burning River Roller Girls (seed 9, ranked 61) from Cleveland, Ohio, met up with the Paper Valley Roller Girls (seed 7, ranked 55) for another tight game.

“It was a really hard fought game. It was a rough game; really hard-hitting. And that’s what makes it fun. I just wish we had about 5 more minutes,” said Burning River’s Co-Captain West Nel Virus (#22). “The first game today wiped us out a little and coming back was difficult. We needed to rally about three times in this game, but I’m very pleased at how tight the game was. It was a lot of fun to play.”

The first few jams were as tight as could be; neither team scored a point. Burning River’s Cupquake (#24) was the first jammer to put points on the scoreboard and gave her team an early lead. When Paper Valley took that lead a couple of jams later, they didn’t give it up again until briefly in the second period.

Prior to this bout, both teams had one win and one loss for the tournament. Burning River’s games against Tri-City and Queen City had been close games. Paper Valley’s games, on the other hand, were won (and lost) by just over 200 points.

Like every team in every bout, Burning River and Paper Valley had something to prove and the teams started the bout with grudge jams. The score remained 0-0 for the first 3 jams. And, almost midway through the first half, the teams stalled again. Neither team was able to make significant headway during non-power jams. But Paper Valley was able to get a few hit-it-and-quit-it jams and increase their lead to 32-14.

Then the power jams began to affect the score. Paper Valley’s jammers sat down in 2 consecutive jams but Burning River’s jammer hit the box, too, and the team was only able to put up 10 points. That brought the score to 32-29.

The teams traded big scoring jams for the rest of the period. Some were power jams and other were powerhouse blocker jams where they shut down the opposing jammer.

At the half, Paper Valley held a slim lead 77-65.

The penalty box always has an effect on bouts, but in this game it was spread equally across the teams. In total, Paper Valley spent 32 minutes in the box and Burning River spent 30. Paper Valley had two more power jams than Burning River and a couple more lead jams but, generally, the fight was on the track between the players and not between the players and the box.

Both teams intensely challenged every opposing jammer and blocker and fought for every single point. Burning River’s Mae Burnya (#451F) tied the game early in the second half. Burning River pulled ahead and held onto the lead for several minutes almost midway through the second half, but then Paper Valley was able to grab it back and inch ahead.

With minutes left in the bout, and Paper Valley holding onto a 20 point lead, Pissy Pistol (#6) caught a power jam and put her team over the top.

“We had a much better performance today than yesterday. We had a renewed sense of energy,” said Paper Valley’s Captain Blazin Britches (#26). “Burning River had some very aggressive jammers and I admire that. Our blocker match ups were very good. They had fun; we had fun. It was a great game.”

Final score

(7) Paper Valley Roller Girls 163
(9) Burning River Rollergirls 144