Duluth, MN

Sin City Pulls Rankings Upset to Advance to Semifinals

By Lois Slain

Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Brewcity Bruisers struggled to find their footing at times during Game 4 against the Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls, of Las Vegas, Nevada, but they mustered the heart and fight to repeatedly rally and close up the point deficit.

Photo by Jim Dier

In the end, Sin City’s mix of forceful jammers and heavy-hitting recycling in the pack allowed the lower-seeded team to pull off the second rankings upset of the day. Brewcity, the 4 seed, is ranked 49 and Sin City, the 5 seed, is ranked 52.

The game started out fairly evenly matched with neither team able to break away in the first dozen minutes. Both teams used deep jammer rotations with skaters who also took turns in blocking roles.

Brewcity trailed by 7 points when Sin City’s Dixie Dash sent the team on their first big scoring run. Brewcity spent the rest of the first period clawing their way back from that deficit and keeping Sin City’s jammers reined in. However, a jammer penalty in the final jam of the half saw Sin City regaining some traction. At the half, the score was 83-58.

About 5 mins into the second half, Brewcity’s Zo-tay tied things up 85-85 in the final of a series of strong jams for the Milwaukee team. However, they never took the lead as a jammer penalty immediately turned their fortunes in the opposite direction.

Sin City took that bit of momentum shift and ran with it, running up their score to 151 over Brewcity’s 88 with about half a period to go. At this point, Brewcity started mixing up their jammer rotation some more and found some moments of success.

Another rally in the final minutes of the game narrowed the point spread, but the clock ran out before Brewcity could translate the momentum into victory.

Final score

(5) Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls 194
(4) Brewcity Bruisers 141

Sin City advances to the semifinals to play the winner of Game 6. Brewcity will face the Omaha Rollergirls at 10 am Saturday.