Saint Paul, MN

By The Oxford Commakaze

Going into the first-place game at the 2015 International WFTDA Championships, the twin questions on everyone’s minds: Can Rose do it, and can Gotham hang on? In an agonizingly close game with ten lead changes and a tie — not to mention too many nail-bitingly close moments to count — the Rose City Rollers of Portland, Ore., (Dallas #1) overcame the Gotham Girls Roller Derby of New York, N.Y., (Omaha #1) 206-195 to break the New York team’s five-year unbeaten streak.

“I started roller derby in early 2011 with the Treasure Valley Rollergirls, and I remember watching the first time Gotham won the Hydra in the beginning of their streak, and it felt like something completely otherworldly and unachieveable — and I’m here, and it’s pretty unbelievable,” Coperna Cuss of the Rose City Rollers said after the game. “At this moment, I’m feeling so much love for the WFTDA and the roller derby community in general. It’s pretty overwhelming.”

Gotham’s Flo It All took the loss in stride. “It was not the outcome we wanted, but I’m so unbelievably proud to be part of this team. I still know in my heart that we’re the best team in the world. Things didn’t go our way tonight, but that just means starting tomorrow that we’re going to be getting ready to show the world again just how great we are.”

A speedy first jam brought a short 2-0 lead for Rose, but a 20-point power jam for Rose’s Scald Eagle as Whitney Griffin kept Gotham separated quickly brought Rose’s lead to 22-0. Before Rose could get too cozy, Gotham jumped on the board with a massive 29-0 jam for Bonnie Thunders, capitalizing on a botched helmet cover pass that left Rose without a jammer for much of the jam. A brief power jam for Rose’s Loren Mutch flipped the lead once more and provided the game’s first one-point gap five minutes in as she called the jam off with Gotham jammer Shortstop standing in the penalty box, but Shortstop burst out of the box and sprinted in for a 13-point power jam of her own after Scald Eagle quickly went to the box on a cut.

Gotham held Rose scoreless as Scald Eagle ran into penalty trouble in two jams, building its lead as Fast & Luce contained Rose’s jammers and Bonnie Thunders and Miss Tea Maven each posted multi-pass jams. At 70-30 and just over half the period remaining, Rose started a comeback of its own, starting with a more characteristic 20-point jam for Scald Eagle while captain Serelson, Jessica Chestnut and Elicia Nisbett-Smith kept Miss Tea Maven completely occupied at the back of the pack. Rose posted unanswered points the next two jams in a row, although Gotham’s Violet Knockout ensured the Oregon team didn’t get carried away.

The score stood 71-61 in Gotham’s favor with just over ten minutes left, and a fast pass by Shortstop inched the gap wider as Roxy Dallas whaled on Rose’s jammers. A power jam for Rose’s LickerNSplit could’ve meant trouble for Gotham, but a visibly exhausted Licker could barely break through the pack as her blockers were preoccupied with Bonnie Thunders’ return from the box. Low-scoring jams kept the score tight but still in Gotham’s favor, and even an 8-point jam from Scald Eagle in which she kept escaping Gotham jammer Bonnie Thunders in the pack couldn’t bring the game back for Rose, closing the half 114-81 in Gotham’s favor thanks to a nicely timed power jam for Shortstop.

Rose jumped into the second half roaring to regain the lead, closing the gap to single digits in a 29-point jam for Scald Eagle to match the same score posted by Bonnie Thunders just 28 minutes of game play earlier, besting nearly immovable blockers Sexy Slaydie and OMG WTF as her teammate Serelson kept Bonnie occupied in the pack for a full minute. A 1-2-3 punch for Rose brought the team where it wanted to be: One short jam from Loren Mutch narrowed the gap to one pass, one short jam from LickerNSplit brought the game to an unthinkable tie, and a brief jam from Scald Eagle snatched the lead back for Rose, 120-118, five minutes into the half.

That lasted only about thirty seconds as Bonnie Thunders juked past Whitney Griffin for a four-point pass of her own, bumping the lead to 122-120 Gotham. Gotham reigned for a brief moment with a 3-0 jam for Vicious van GoGo, but Rose snatched the lead away again as Scald Eagle ran the jam long, counting on Serelson and Jes Rivas to hold Gotham’s jammers even past the initial pass as she retook the lead, but a last-second back block call reopened the door for Gotham. A dominant power jam for Bonnie Thunders brought the lead back for her team, which it clung to through the halfway mark of the period, but a string of lead jammer calls for Rose as blocker Jamie True was everywhere Gotham’s jammers wanted to be inched the score closer, eventually overtaking Gotham again on a power jam for Loren Mutch.

With barely ten minutes left in the half, Gotham leapt right back into the lead with a fast one-pass jam by Miss Tea Maven and only built from there, shutting Rose down completely with stellar defense from Caf Fiend and Sexy Slaydie for five full minutes while building a 171-147 lead. But in the critical final moments of the game, Rose began a resurgence starting with a lead jam call for LickerNSplit, who bravely ran a jam long even after Bonnie Thunders escaped from the pack, pulling in a 6-0 jam. Scald Eagle also ran a jam long even after Miss Tea Maven escaped the pack ahead of her — but not as lead jammer — pulling in an extra pass to pull the game to a 13-point gap and tying Bonnie Thunders for points scored in the game with 105.

A one-pass jam for Loren Mutch brought the game back within a single-digit point gap, but a face-off between leading point-scorers Scald Eagle and Bonnie Thunders brought the game to its tenth — and final — lead change of the game. Scald Eagle escaped first for lead jammer with Bonnie Thunders hot on her heels and depleted blocker packs for both teams, but blocker Jessica Chestnut kept Gotham’s jammer occupied while her own jammer made pass after pass. Although Bonnie Thunders and pivot-turned-jammer Fisher Twice were able to eke out two passes, that was no match for the 28 points Scald Eagle posted as she flew through the pack. With an 11-point gap, fourteen seconds on the clock, and a power start with Fisher Twice sitting in the box as jammer, it seemed Rose could not be caught, but fans got one last nail-biting jam as Loren Mutch was declared not lead and the jam ran the full two minutes. Fisher Twice emerged from the box looking to pass the jammer cover, but pivot Bonnie Thunders was on her way to the penalty box, leaving Fisher Twice tangling with Rose’s merciless defense. After two passes each for Loren Mutch and Bonnie Thunders, fighting to regain the lead as the clock slipped away, the final whistle blew with Rose still on top, 206-195.

“At one point in the game, Shaina (Serelson) came off the track when we were behind, and we just said, ‘We’re going to win.’ I don’t think it was cockiness, I think it was just a belief in ourselves and our teammates, and that carried us through,” said Coperna Cuss. “In a certain sense, that faith in ourselves carried us through the whole game. It was still stressful like it always is when there’s a close game. For those 60 minutes I would’ve much preferred a wide point spread in our favor, but at the end of the day — what a great game! It was a great game for the fans, and there’s a nice symmetry to it, that it was down to the last jam last year and the last jam this year.”

After going undefeated for nearly five years and with four straight championship titles under its belt, Flo It All expects the team’s legacy to speak for itself even as the tier of elite roller derby leagues expands.

“As the sport is growing, there are other teams for people to look at as well. I don’t think we’re ever going to stop being someone to look at as well, but I think it’s great that there are other teams that are being watched as closely,” she said, citing Rose and the Victorian Roller Derby League as organizations changing the way derby is played. “Apart from our style of play, we’re still an example for the derby community in that we train from the ground up, we work our butts off, we train so hard, and Gotham has made almost every single skater on our team who they are.”

FINAL SCORE

Rose City Rollers (Dallas #1) 206
Gotham Girls Roller Derby (Omaha #1) 195