Charleston, WV

By Lexistential Crisis

Indianapolis’s Naptown Roller Girls (seed 5, #21) survived a second-half come back from SoCal Derby (seed 10, #38) of San Diego, California to win Game 8 of the International WFTDA Divison 1 Playoffs in Charleston. Both teams lost their first games of the tournament yesterday, as Naptown fell to Atlanta while SoCal lost to Madison. This is the first time Naptown and SoCal have played each other.

Photo by Louis Keiner

Naptown dominated most of the first half as SoCal’s blockers spent a lot of time in the penalty box for forearm, direction of game play, multiplayer block, and out of play penalties. SoCal also gave Naptown five power jam opportunities as their jammers went to the box while Naptown’s jammers only committed two penalties in the first half. Naptown took advantage of SoCal’s penalties to hold a 65-12 lead with about 15 minutes left in the half.

SoCal’s jammers started to find their way through Naptown’s packs as they earned lead jammer status six times in the eight final jams of the first half.

“Our momentum started before the half ended. We calmed down enough to do what we know how to do,” Trish the Dish, SoCal’s captain, said.

At the half SoCal had 41 points to Naptown’s 101.

The second half started with all 10 skaters on the track, and this was one of few jams to start that way. Penalty issues plagued both sides, as many jams featured multiple jammer penalties along with numerous blocker penalties. During power jams, both teams worked hard to stop the pack and keep the other team separate. Naptown often isolated one blocker at the back of the pack in order to allow their jammer to push the others out of play. SoCal tried a similar strategy and often had all of their blockers interrupting the Naptown wall.

Marcy Slayground, Trish the Dish, Ortega Chile, and T-Bone Skate formed dynamic walls to hold back Naptown’s jammers and every SoCal blocker worked hard to support their jammers efforts to tighten the score. With about 13 minutes left in the half, SoCal managed to shorten the lead to only 32 points, as the score was 139 for Naptown and 102 for SoCal.

Naptown didn’t allow SoCal to get closer than that until the final jam of the half. Wham Bam, Dora The Destroyer, Lethal Vixen, Scorpiopathic, and Mutant Jean all had impressive defensive and offensive moments as they limited SoCal’s scoring.

“Overall we did a really good job of working together and keeping our heads in the right place and taking each jam one at a time,” said Naptown’s captain Maiden America.

With 20 seconds left on the clock Naptown’s jammer cut the track in the final jam to give SoCal one more opportunity to close the scoring gap. Pippy Longstalker added 22 points to her team’s total to end the game with a 23 point score differential. SoCal outscored Naptown in the second half of the game with 114 points, while Naptown only added 77. Both teams significantly increased their penalty count in the second half, as Naptown committed nine jammer penalties and SoCal committed six to bring the total jammer penalties for each team to 11. Naptown put 55 penalties on the board and SoCal added 48 to bring the game total to 103.

Naptown’s G-Rocket, Cherry-oto-Fire, and Maiden America were their team’s top scorers with 64, 56, and 35 points, respectively. For SoCal, Pippy Longstalker earned 62 points and Kwyet Wryot and Buns of Fury both added 40.

Maiden America said her team plans to “come out fresh and play every jam like it’s the first” as they take on the Columbia QuadSquad (seed 9, #37) later today at 6pm EDT. Tomorrow SoCal has the opportunity to finish in 9th place when they play Jet City (seed 8, #30) at 10am. Trish the Dish said they are “not really focused on them, we’re focused on ourselves.”

Final Score

(10) SoCal Derby 155
(5) Naptown Roller Girls 178