Salt Lake City, UT

By Danger (ismymiddlename)

Home team Wasatch Roller Derby, from Salt Lake City, Utah, took on Arch Rival Rollergirls from St. Louis, Missouri, and the game offered two very different halves. Arch Rival’s team in pink went on to gently hold the first half, never stretching the lead further than 14, and keeping mostly below a 10-point lead for the first period. It was the second half of the game that saw Arch Rival return aflame and, as Wasatch added up penalties rapidly, Arch Rival then took the game with a hefty 172-95.

Photo by Donna Olmstead

The first jam started with Arch Rival’s Mighty Mighty Boston taking the first 10 points of the game, unreplied. The game offered frequently fast-moving play and fluctuating pack sizes. With Wasatch jammer Ali3 Kitt3n yelling at least once at her pack to allow her to catch up, as speed increased across the period. Arch Rival spent much of this half trying to maintain their lead.

Arch Rival put up a predictable jammer rotation of Brickyard, Swanson and Mighty Mighty Boston with Shimmy Hoffa showing up in the second quarter. Wasatch stuck to Ali3 Kitt3n, Dr. Octopushy, and Bunz Bunny, and introduced Wreckless as a jammer towards the end of the first quarter.

Wasatch often held passive offense when jammers got split apart, and clearly defined front and rear walls engaged the jammer. There was regular bridging as Arch Rival in particular held and engaged the jammer up to the final yard of play. Wasatch, visibly prioritizing defensive play, often left their jammers to get on with cracking through the Arch Rival defensive lines while they busied themselves with Arch Rival’s jammers.

The halftime score was Arch Rival 66-61 Wasatch. Clearly this was not a score impossible to surmount for Wasatch, a fact both teams were likely acutely aware of, as they gathered in the halftime break.

But Arch Rival reportedly had the locker room discussion at that point that pushed them into the win for the game.

“In the first half, we were playing short. We were getting a lot of penalties, so we discussed that a five-point game is basically starting over,” said Arch Rival’s Ninja Sass’Em. “And we came out and knew that we could play 30 minutes, perfectly clean, just keep our girls on the track and just lock it down.”

After the halftime break, Arch Rival was a team on fire as they allowed a tiny increment of points from Wasatch before clamping down on their jammers and dominating lead. Arch Rival climbed unstoppably while keeping Wasatch scoreless for 9 continuous jams.

Then, at a score of 136 - 86, with 8:41 remaining in the game, Arch Rival took a team timeout, followed closely by an official timeout in which Skull Candi was expelled for grabbing an opposing player’s helmet. And only a single jam later, another key Wasatch blocker Penny Slain fouled out of the game.

Wasatch forced a final jam as they called a team timeout with only 16 seconds remaining in the game, and a score of 172-95 to Arch Rival. This jam began with Brickyard and Wreckless on the line to jam, and Brickyard took a run up to the pivot line to Wasatch blockers, grabbed lead jammer status quickly and then called off the expired period jam, maintaining the score they entered the jam with as their final score.

Arch Rival will advance to the 5th place game tomorrow at 2 pm MDT where they meet Montreal.

“So we came in at #7, and we’re going to play for 5th and 6th tomorrow, and that was our goal of the weekend… was to win our first game. Because historically we lose that first game, and go into the consolation,” said Ninja Sass’em. “So we wanted to win our first, and come out of the weekend higher than we went in. And we are assured that, so tomorrow is icing on the cake. And we’re going to come in, and we’re going to play hard again”.

Wasatch goes on to play against No Coast for 7th position tomorrow at noon MDT.

Wasatch chatted briefly about their home team status, and what it’s been like running tournament logistics while also competing: “Because we’ve got so many members in the league, we’ve got the Red Rockettes which is like our recreational league, we’ve got the men’s league, we have the juniors league as well as everyone else that’s a part of Wasatch that’s stepped to volunteer. And all of the surrounding leagues in Utah, so we really haven’t had to do anything. So we’ve just been able to focus on ourselves and the games”, said Mad Eye Molly.

Some Watery Tart added, “We just have had a lot of support from our fans, and that group, and our families. And it just means so much to us that they’re helping out so much, so that we don’t have to worry about doing all that ourselves.”

Final Score

(7) Arch Rival Rollergirls 172
(6) Wasatch Roller Derby 95