Saint Paul, MN

By The Oxford Commkaze

In a familiar matchup seen just a few months ago and at last year’s Championships, the Rose City Rollers of Portland, Ore., (Dallas #1) outlasted the Bay Area Derby Girls of Oakland, Calif., (Tucson #2) in the quarterfinals at the 2015 International WFTDA Championships. Rose City moves on to play the London Rollergirls at 6:30 p.m. tonight.

“We played Bay Area earlier in the season and we had a pretty definitive win against them, but we came into this bout never underestimating what they can do because we’ve been that team before that underestimated and got taken out in the first round,” Rose’s Sarah Gaither said. “So while confident, we were not overconfident. That felt solid, it felt together. We’ve been working a lot on having a consistent offense and I think that showed that it’s effective.

Bay Area hit the track fresh off a confidence-building win over Denver Roller Derby on Friday, besting a team to which they’d lost earlier in the season, and looked ready to provide a similar challenge to Rose with a 10-0 opening jam by Lulu Lockjaw as a glut of Rose penalties took out half their blockers and jammer Loren Mutch. Scald Eagle put Rose on the board in the next game with a nine-point jam as Hannah Jennings harried Bay Area jammer Skrappie in the pack, but a sprint up the straightaway for Skrappie during a slow call-off kept Bay Area increasing its score.

Photo by Joey Miller

But the game’s first lead change came just five minutes in with a leadless jam with jammer penalties to both teams in which Serelson’s offense for Rose on a power jam edged her team into the lead, but standout blocking by Amanda Jamintinya and Murderyn Monroe held her to just one pass for a score of 16-13 in Rose’s favor. Rose inched its lead wider as Brawn Swanson held Bay Area while Scald Eagle scored for Rose, but a cutting penalty on Scald allowed Bay Area’s Frightmare to increase her team’s score, too.

The teams traded low-scoring fast jams until Bay Area jammer Fluezy created her own power jam with a well-timed leap backwards as Scald Eagle re-entered the track ahead of her, posting 14 points to retake the lead for Bay Area before Scald re-entered and quickly completed her initial pass. The lead was short-lived, however, and would be Bay Area’s last time as the top team of the game as Rose came out on top of a power jam for Bay Area, holding Frightmare to just two passes while Rose jammer LickerNSplit racked up more than double that, bringing the score to 56-49 halfway through the first.

A slew of lead jammer calls for Rose kept the Oregon team increasing its lead, holding Bay Area scoreless in all but two jams for the rest of the half as Rose’s formidable walls consistently stymied Bay Area’s jammers, shutting them down despite three straight jams in a row with just one jammer as Napoleon Blownapart faced penalty trouble, but still outscored her Bay Area counterparts. Despite strenuous defense from belle RIGHT hooks and Brawllen Angel for Bay Area, Rose City jammers Scald Eagle and Loren Mutch were uncontainable, especially with the difficulty Whitney Griffin and Jessica Chestnut provided Bay Area’s jammers. Although Bay Area got back on the board with a chaotic final jam of the half that saw Loren Mutch wrongly boxed and released while Lulu Lockjaw scored for Bay Area, Rose had built a lead of nearly double Bay Area’s score, ending the half 104-56.

Rose brought a dominant start to the second half as jammer Scald Eagle fended off belle RIGHT hooks for lead jammer and ran the jam even after Lulu Lockjaw completed her initial pass for Bay Area, posting a 15-4 opening jam score in Rose’s favor. A cut by Lulu Lockjaw at the end of the previous jam opened the door for a 25-point unanswered power jam for Loren Mutch, who couldn’t be contained by Demanda Riot by herself at the front of the pack, especially once Rose employed the active offense it relied on throughout the game.

A comfortable 144-63 lead for Rose was made a little less sturdy as jammer Napoleon Blownapart received four penalties in a row, which Bay Area jammers Fluezy, Huck Sinn and Skrappie were only too happy to jump on, dragging the penalties out for four jams to close the lead to 154-92 with twenty minutes left in the game. Rose got back on the board with a 7-4 jam in which Napoleon Blownapart emerged from the box and passed her helmet cover straight to pivot Scald Eagle, but another four straight lead jam calls for Bay Area (including a power jam for Frightmare) brought the score back within 50 points.

Photo by [Danforth Johnson/ danforthjohnsonphotography.com)

Rose was ready to jump back in as fresh jammer Luna emerged from the box to grab lead jammer immediately while her pack contained Lulu Lockjaw on her initial pass, posting a grand slam to get Rose back on the scoreboard. A lead jam call for Loren Mutch should’ve helped solidify Rose’s lead, but Bay Area jammer Skrappie sped through the pack after disentangling from Jes Rivas and Jessica Chestnut to steal 4 points to Mutch’s 2. Bay Area looked ready to continue its momentum run with a lead jam call for Fluezy as Liza Machete kept Scald Eagle occupied at the back of the pack, but a power jam let Scald Eagle make pass after pass through the pack — at least, until she cut the track, opening the door for an eight-point power jam for Frightmare.

Another lead jam call for Bay Area — the third in a row — looked promising for the California team, but LickerNSplit stole 1 point to Huck Sinn’s 2 to keep Rose increasing its score. With less than five minutes to go and a 46-point deficit, Rose had the taste of victory in its mouth and pulled two lead jams in a row on low-scoring jams that burned away clock time. A lead jam call for Fluezy with less than two minutes remaining in the game left hope for the Bay Area, but a 45-point deficit would require great luck and even greater skill to overcome. With just over one minute remaining on the game clock, Scald Eagle leapt out of the pack as Rose’s lead jammer, posting a quick four-point pass before encountering trouble from Murderyn Monroe and hovering at the back of the pack waiting for the clock to run out while Frightmare fought for every point she could eke out for Bay Area. Rose’s well-timed offense proved a smart gamble, though, as its carefully accumulated point made the Oregon team uncatchable for a final score of 191-145.

“What our team is always really focused on is not just winning but about how we want to play and how we want to play together,” Bay Area coach Chantilly Mace said. “When you look at the second half of a game that may be the last of your season, you play the second half to leave everything on the track, and you play for each other. It’s a great way to end together.”

Rose City advances to play London Rollergirls in Game 9 Saturday night at 6:30pm CST.

FINAL SCORE:

Rose City Rollers (Dallas #1) 191
Bay Area Derby Girls (Tucson #2) 145