Salt Lake City, UT

by Danger (ismymiddlename)

With a deeper jammer rotation, and heavier defensive lines, Arch Rival Rollergirls from St Louis, MO, steadily held control of the game, keeping Tri-City Roller Derby from Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, at bay. Arch Rival constantly inched up their point total, with occasional power jam-driven point grabs, to take the win, 244-111.

The first jam started with Ova’Kill jamming for Tri City when she immediately became caught in the back of the pack. Arch Rival’s Mighty Mighty Boston, however, grabbed lead jammer status and called the jam after sneaking in 3 unanswered points. Second jam in, the first half’s highest scorer by far, Brickyard tried to make it up the inside. When she was then immediately knocked out and recycled, her blockers responded by doing the same repeatedly to Freudian Whip. Freudian responded with a star pass, handed the star to pivot Sofanda Beating, who got out and came up to the back of the pack, just as Brickyard called the jam after a 10-0 addition.

These jams started a convincing trend, as Arch Rival established a solid lead early, putting 16 points up in the first 4 minutes, holding Tri-City scoreless. It then took a power jam in the 4th jam (at the 5th minute in to the game) for Tri-City to add their first points, getting up 5 to Arch Rival’s 15 point addition in the same jam.

Not long after, top scoring jammer Brickyard (with 67 of her 78 points in the first half) took a power jam, as Tri-City’s Sofanda Beating was boxed. And Arch Rival’s blockers responded with passive offense, leaving her to push up the Tri-City blockers up to the last yard to make points. Tri-City worked out at about the 10 min mark that passive offense as a tactic isn’t likely to work, and instead started sending an offensive strike in to break up walls, operating mostly as distraction.

Tri-City soon attempted another star pass, while Arch Rival successfully kept their pivot and jammer separate, and then knocked the new jammer to the inside, helmet cover still in hand. There were three star passes in total in the first half, and then not repeated in the remainder of the game, as the game move garnered no points.

Tri-City then started to inch points up, this time assisted by a penalty from Shimmy Hoffa (Arch Rival jammer), handing them a power jam. They took the score up to 68-40, and Arch Rival responded with the first of their team time outs. The timeout turned out to be a good strategy, because Tri-City’s blockers immediately started to leave the track on penalties, leaving Arch Rival with a 4:2 pack advantage, and more time for point additions. Arch Rival emerged then with 81-50, headed into the final 10 minutes of the period, and held Tri-City unscoring for 4 long jams as they got to 107-50, before Ova’Kill’ was able to add in 4 points, and then start scoring again. Tri-City point added to 128-65, and then responded with a team timeout.

By the final jam for the half, Brickyard called from the floor in classic style. Halftime score: Arch-Rival 144-65 Tri-City.

The next period began with Ova’Kill spinning around the outside of Arch Rival blockers right into the final whistle of the first jam back in, gathering 3 points. But nonetheless, this period saw Tri-City’s jammers being repeatedly contained in rear defensive walls off the initial whistle. An almost even spread of points additions from each team pushed the score to 163-84, with Arch Rival still leading, by 23 minutes to go in the game.

Throughout this half, Ova’Kill was still in heavy use as jammer, playing 15 out of a total 44 jams for Tri-City, and visibly tiring. Preying Man Tease was in 14, keeping almost equivalent, but earning 6 jammer penalties in the process, perhaps explaining her relative freshness.

By the final jam Brickyard and Preying Man Tease were jamming against one another, and a small but evenly spread 2:2 pack of blockers. But Arch Rival’s Brickyard cruised to lead status and called the jam after the final period seconds ticked off, holding the game securely for Arch Rival, with a final score of Arch Rival 244 - 111 Tri-City.

Arch Rival goes on to meet Angel City Derby Girls at 4pm MDT, and Tri-City plays the loser of game #3 at 10am MDT Saturday.

Final Score

(7) Arch Rival Rollergirls 244
(10) Tri-City Roller Derby 111