Sacramento, CA

Tampa Tantrums Pull Out a Win Over the Santa Cruz Bombshells

By Jezebelle Z. Bub

Coming off their loss to Denver on Friday and win over New Hampshire Saturday morning, the 6 seed Santa Cruz Derby Girls (rank #25) from Santa Cruz, California play 7 seed Tampa Roller Derby (rank #26) from Tampa, Florida, for a chance to move into the 5th Place game in the international 2014 WFTDA Division 1 playoffs. Tampa executed the first rankings upset of the tournament to take the win, 278-101.

photo by [Mike Butler] (https://www.flickr.com/photos/towelb0y/)

To start, Tampa jammer Little A pushed an entire pack of Santa Cruz blockers slowly forward until she could slide herself around them and into lead. Meanwhile, Santa Cruz jammer Luna is stuck behind a tight back wall. Luna tried to jump past the pack, but landed painfully on her side, leaving Tampa to take the lead, 17-0.

The Crowd shouted for “Tara" -- Santa Cruz's Taraism -- and she answered by juking into the lead, but Tampa jammer Apolo Ana was close behind. Ana performed her soon-to-be signature move: jumping 180 degrees and then skating backwards out of the pack. By the end of the third jam, Santa Cruz was closing in on the gap, bringing the score to 17-12.

Santa Cruz jammer Ace Wenchura pulled a signature move of her own running on her toe stops out of the pack, but she was penalized with a high block and sent to the box.

In a later jam, Apolo Ana returned to the track from the box only to be stalled by a three wall behind Santa Cruz blockers Beans, Envy Atoms and Ginger. Ginger took a hard fall trying to stall Ana. And then another skater takes a hard fall, but this time it’s Ana Apolo who exits the track still hunched. After the pause in play for the medical timeout, the score differential was down to one point, 35-34.

PhDiesel started putting some distance between those score, raking in in ten points for Tampa, 45-37.

The Tampa Tantrums were getting some love from their Terminal City fans cheering in the stands. Riding the momentum of the crowd, Tampa jammer Laryn Kill jumped into a 180 past the last line of Santa Cruz defense before calling the jam off with the score, 98-50.

Santa Cruz was on a scoring freeze, and Tampa jammer Apolo Ana took advantage of this, snagging the lead only to be held up by Santa Cruz blockers Shamrock N. Roller and Sharon D. Payne, and then again by Shamrock. Ana called off the jam and ends the first half in Tampa’s favor, 134-59.

"We knew it was going to be a really tough physical game,” said Santa Cruz captain Queen Litigious.”We saw that Tampa was really bringing it this weekend. We knew the intensity was really high so we thought we needed to match their intensity… They were really 100% all the time. "

In the second half, Tampa conserved some energy with shorter jam times while Santa Cruz cranked up the star passes and penalties. Slippery Tampa jammers like Little A, Apolo Ana, and Laryn Kill dominated the score board.

In cause for crowd clamor, the Santa Cruz jammer passed her helmet cover to Kamikaze Rozy, who collided with Tampa blockers and was sent to the penalty box. Rozy was then expelled for egregious back blocking.

Apolo Ana again pulled off her trademark move and jumped 180 degrees around the front of the pack. TARAism, on Ana’s tail, is derailed and sent to the box: A power jam in Tampa's favor and to only two Santa Cruz blockers to boot. TARAism returned to the track, but can’t budge Tampa’s wall. Laryn Kill has a little more success denting the scoreboard, 254-101.

By the end of the game, Santa Cruz blockers Inflict Her Pain, Foxee Firestorm, and Shamrock N. Roller sat in the box seven times each—all fouling out of the game. Overall, Santa Cruz jammers hit the penalty box 12 times, Tampa only four.

“We were’t excited about the score or that we won, but that we played Tampa roller derby’s way of playing,” said Tampa jammer PhDiesel. “We kept the game under our control from the first whistle to the very last whistle.”

Next, the Tampa Tantrums take on Terminal City All-Stars Sunday at 2 p.m. to duke it out between 5th and 6th Place of the international 2014 WFTDA D1 playoffs in Sacramento. Santa Cruz will take on Kansas City for 7th and 8th Place.

FINAL SCORE

(7) Tampa Roller Derby 278

(6) Santa Cruz Derby Girls 101