Evansville, IN

By Danger (ismymiddlename)

Game 3 of the international WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs in Evansville, Indiana, rife with star passes, was finally determined by the heavy defensive lines of the Windy City Rollers (seed 3, ranked #11) from Chicago, Illinois, USA, in their win against Toronto Roller Derby (seed 6, ranked #23) from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Also contributing was two especially strong jammers for Windy City, Ying O’fire and Jan Trainor, who were almost tied at 80-81 points apiece as key jammers for the team and game. Windy City determined much of the game play, and steadily added points as they held Toronto back firmly, but Toronto regrouped and pushed heftily back up as they neared the end of the first half and put up most of their points in the second. Final score was 327-80.

Photo by Steve Jurkovic

Jan Trainor, Windy City’s starting jammer, was held by a clustering front-then-side wall, but then broke through for lead jammer status. Even a star pass from Dusty to Dyna Hurtcha, for Toronto, kept them held on their initial pass as they were repeatedly re-engaged and recycled by Windy’s blockers. The jam was called when Hurtcha finally made it out of the pack, and back around to the pack again, but Windy already had 18-0, and game lead.

Sandrine Rangeon was next up to jam against Toronto’s Kookie Doe, but then the second star pass of the game was featured, going to Ames to Kill, as Toronto hit Windy’s solid defensive lines once again. Rangeon tried some jammer engagement as the score mounted to 37-0, but it knocked her off balance and caused her to call the jam, even as Toronto’s jammer was called on a cut-track penalty.

The repeated star pass strategy from Toronto, to deal with the consistently impenetrable Windy defensive lines on initial passes, was variably successful; and they started to ease off that strategy as the game progressed.

With 11:56 remaining in the first period, Toronto called a team timeout and regrouped. They then maintained some solid defensive resistance, mimicking Windy’s game play, and started to take lead jammer status and slowly add points.

Windy City entered half-time with a solid lead, which they still looked likely to maintain with a score of 177-15 at the halftime whistle.

Toronto came back strong in the second half with a renewed momentum, adding most of their game points in this period. And when Toronto put up a particularly effective set of blocking, with 18 minutes remaining in the game, Windy City responded by jamming Jackie Daniels, who had yet to jam this bout and grabbed 9 unanswered points.

Several more variably successful star passes later, Windy City called for their second-period official review with 4:27 left in the game, on an illegal procedure call, which was upheld. Although the point spread by that point was far too great to give Toronto any further hope of a game win, they claimed lead jammer status for 3 of the final 4 jams, adding points.

The game ended as it began—with a star pass. However, this one was by Windy City’s Killa Nois, who uncharacteristically had not taken lead. Windy still managed to squeeze in a final 17 points to Toronto’s 12, leaving us with a final score of Windy City Rollers 327 - 80 Toronto Roller Derby.

Watch Windy City play against the winner of game #5 tomorrow at 8:00 pm CDT, while Toronto takes on the loser of game #1 at noon, CDT.

Final Score

(3) Windy City Rollers 327
(6) Toronto Roller Derby 80