Salt Lake City, UT

By Vile Love It

The final game of Saturday night saw the No. 3 seed Rocky Mountain Rollergirls (Denver, CO) and the No. 2 seed Angel City Derby Girls (Los Angeles, CA) in a gritty game in which both teams jockeyed for advantage on every part of the track.

Photo by Donna Olmstead

The first 10 minutes of the game whittled down many fans’ nails from both sides of the track. Neither team had more than a 6 point lead at any time until Rocky Mountain’s Sweet Mary Pain headed to the penalty box for a minute. She collected a double penalty (the second for not exiting the track quick enough). Angel City did their best to take full advantage of it, but Rocky Mountain’s tough defense only gave way for 14 points; the first significant lead of the game.

Angel City held on tightly to that lead and did their best to increase it while Rocky Mountain’s jammers gave them a little bit of unintended assistance in the form of 10 power jams during the first period. Some power jams were longer than others, but all in all, the lack of a scoring jammer for almost 5 minutes of the first period hurt the Denver team. Angel City only gave up 3 power jams during the first period.

At the half Angel City held a solid, but not comfortable, lead: 95-64. Rocky Mountain had a player sitting on 5 penalties (total of 22 team penalties) and Angel City had a player with 4 penalties (with 21 team penalties).

Going into the second half, the pressure was steady on both sides of the track. Rocky Mountain and Angel City showed similar defensive styles concentrating on cycling, braced walls and recycling the jammers to the back of the pack as often as possible. As slow moving as many of the packs were, that didn’t mean that the skaters, and not only the jammers, weren’t moving furiously to get through and around.

Rocky Mountain’s jammers were able to cut their penalties in half during the second period, but overall they sat in the box 15 times whereas Angel City’s jammers only sat 6 times throughout the entire game.

This was enough to give Angel City the win and, in addition to their guaranteed trip to the international 2014 WFTDA Championships in Nashville, they will play B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls for first place and the top Champs seed on Sunday at 6 p.m. Rocky Mountain is not out of the running for WFTDA Champs either and advances to play against Charm City Roller Girls on Sunday in the fight for third place.

Final Score

(2) Angel City Derby Girls 193
(3) Rocky Mountain Rollergirls 137