Nashville, TN

By The Oxford Commakaze

In the first WFTDA Championship tournament game to feature two non-U.S. teams, the London Rollergirls forced their way to a 173-142 win over the Victorian Roller Derby League thanks to devastating recycling and well-timed offense. VRDL hoped to carry their momentum from yesterday’s game against the Minnesota Rollergirls for their second-ever win at a WFTDA championship tournament, but London’s experience and calm bench proved insurmountable.

“Realistically, I think we are very evenly matched teams,” said VRDL’s Tui Lyon. “We both have very evenly matched jammers and blockers, but they were just the best team of the day.”

Photo by Donna Olmstead

The first jam saw full power jams for both teams as both London and VRDL got their skating legs under them, with London coming out on top to an 8-5 start. Other than frequent power jams in the first few jams, both teams managed to keep their blockers out of the box, resulting in full defensive walls and blockers to spare for offense. London padded its early lead throughout the first few jams, relying on a three-wall to hold VRDL’s jammers back and sending an offensive blocker to wreak havoc on the diamond blocking formation that VRDL found so effective against Minnesota, building up an 18-9 lead in the first nine minutes.

But when VRDL’s Christy Demons earned lead jammer for the first time since the first jam, London was forced to devote all its blocking power to stopping her, allowing VRDL to establish its formidable walls and hold London jammer Lexi Lightspeed while Christy Demons more than doubled VRDL’s score, changing the lead to 18-22. VRDL held London scoreless for four jams after being allowed to establish its walls as London focused on a more defensive style of play, but both teams were hard pressed to gain points in molasses-slow packs, often taking more than 30 seconds to establish a lead jammer.

London’s Raw Heidi said that although they’d hoped to come out strong and never give up the lead, the team wasn’t thrown by a dicey start.

“If you look back at almost every single high-level game we play, we tend to lose the first jam or two, points-wise,” she said. “I think we’re big enough and ugly enough now not to let that faze us.”

Photo by Danforth Johnson

London retook the lead only a few jams later after a track cut on VRDL’s jammer left London’s Lexi Lightspeed with a power jam, but momentary offense from her blockers couldn’t contain VRDL once its boxed blockers returned to the track. However, it was enough for a lead change, 37-33. That lead lasted only one jam as VRDL jammer Swish Cariboom barreled through London’s walls for a quick lead call, grabbing five points after her blockers held London’s jammer and picked off a blocker for good measure, making the score 37-38. The rest of the half remained close, but as VRDL adapted to forming its defensive diamonds around London’s persistent offensive blockers, its defenses were able to fight off London power jams to cling to a 56-61 lead at the half.

Those points would be the last for VRDL for six jams as London came back with a vengeance at the beginning of the second half, changing the lead to 86-61 in the very first jam after a glut of VRDL penalties left Perky Nah Nah by herself to deal with Kamikaze Kitten as VRDL jammer Giles dealt with a full pack of London blockers, with both jammers heading to the box amid the jam’s chaos. VRDL’s Tui Lyon tried valiantly to contain London’s Lexi Lightspeed in the next jam, a power start for London, and slowed her momentum with a series of bone-jarring hits, but London contained the re-entering Giles while Lexi danced through the track on her toe stops, racking up a 24-point power jam for a score of 110-61.

Photo by Steve Jurkovic

Both teams’ momentum slowed to a crawl with each only scoring four points over the next five jams, but London got moving again with an 18-point power jam for Lexi Lightspeed, in which VRDL nearly contained her by knocking her down, but didn’t take her all the way out of bounds, leaving her the centimeters on the inside and outside lines she needed to break through. Although both teams put points up in subsequent jams with jammers pushing their blockers to clear holes and then running through pushed-apart packs, London accumulated just a little more quickly through the first twenty minutes of the half, pushing the score to 156-78.

The clock was winding down, but VRDL was just winding up for one last comeback push, adding two 20-point jams in a row and getting the crowd on its feet, pulling the score to 165-118 with less than seven minutes to go.

“It was very scary,” reflected Raw Heidi. “We’ve choked and lost games at that point beforehand, and we know that Victoria are gonna try absolutely every damn thing they can to win that game, so we just have to do the same – pull out every trick in our arsenal, which really just meant trying to keep that lead.”

Although VRDL held London to just six points in the rest of the game and pushed its own score up further thanks to a series of lead jam calls, London’s adaptive play and ability to break up VRDL’s diamond walls carried through for a 173-142 win.

“We’ve been hungry for it for a long time, and it feels amazing to come here, and we’re very proud of how well we’ve done for our first showing at Championships,” said Tui Lyon. “I think the closeness of all the games is just a testament to how the new ranking system has really meant that they are the top teams at Championships and they’re close matches every time. It feels great to be part of a movement of teams that really deserve to be here. Beating any of them is a really amazing experience. Would’ve loved two, but one will have to do this year.”

London will move on to play Gotham Girls Roller Derby tonight at 8:30 p.m. central time. Although the two teams had never played each other before this year, they played each other less than four months ago.

“Who doesn’t want to take on the number one team, you know?” asked Raw Heidi. “This is what we have trained for, and having played them already in the year is a treat, really, so we kind of know what we’re laying ourselves in for.”

Final Score

London Rollergirls (Evansville #1) 173
Victorian Roller Derby League (Charleston #2) 142