Kitchener-Waterloo, ON

By Whacks Poetic

The final day of WFTDA 2014 Division 2 Kitchener-Waterloo playoffs started with the ninth place game. Boulder County Bombers (Boulder, CO) was looking to redeem themselves having come into the tournament as the 6 seed. Grand Raggidy Roller Girls (Grand Rapids, MI) was looking to improve on their ranking, coming into the tournament as tenth seed. In the end, 9th place would go to Boulder County, defeating Grand Raggidy, 244-172.

Photo by Steve Jurkovic

The early jams were fairly split with Boulder County taking a 14-8 lead after jam 4. A 14-point jam by Grand Raggidy jammer Lucy Morals would shift that score to 22-14 in favor of Grand Raggidy. The scoreboard after that jam would be the only time that Grand Raggidy would lead with MissFortune Cookie putting up a 9-0 jam immediately thereafter and Boulder County regaining the lead.

While Grand Raggidy put together some good runs and their jammer UltraFox consistently produced 4-0 jams throughout the game, Boulder County clamped down when it was important and killed Grand Raggidy’s momentum builds at every turn. At the end of the first half the score was 118-76 for the Colorado team. The closest Grand Raggidy would get to Boulder’s score was a 9-point difference near the start of the second half. UltraFox managed a 19-point jam for the Michigan team while Boulder’s jammer, MissFortune Cookie sat in the box on a back block.

For the first 10 jams of the half, Grand Raggidy held Boulder to only 6 points while scoring 39 themselves. Boulder managed to start nickel and diming the lead back up with single scoring pass jams by Short Stack, Smashalotapus, and MissFortune Cookie. Boulder took a firm grasp on the game in jam 18 where Feist E. One scored 19 points which increased Boulder’s lead to over 50 points. Another 23-point jam by Feist E. One near the end of the period meant the final score difference was 72 points, 244-172 Boulder over Grand Raggidy.

“Our blockers were incredibly good at holding their jammer and drawing penalties. We were trying to run out the time and we knew we could never stop working hard. It felt like a really good bout, a really close bout,” Feist E. One said.

Final score:

Boulder County Bombers 244

Grand Raggidy Rollergirls 172

Boulder County finishes the tournament in 9th place. Grand Raggidy finishes the tournament in 10th.

“The hospitality was great. It was nice to come into a tournament thinking winning was a possibility for any game," said Grand Raggidy Captain Mona Vaydid. Grand Raggidy competed in Fort Wayne at Division 1 playoffs last year. "It felt like it was close competition and a level playing field across the board. I mean we lost by only 16 points to a team competing for third.”