Detroit, MI

By The Oxford Commakaze

Wasatch Roller Derby of Salt Lake City, Utah, held on to its #5 seeding at the 2015 International WFTDA Division 2 Playoffs Detroit by holding back Bear City Roller Derby of Berlin, Germany, relying on both skilled skaters and a savvy bench that won three of four official reviews -- a rarity.

Photo by Derby With Recess

Wasatch came out for an immediate 19-0 lead in the first jam as Sookie Slaphouse popped straight through the pack and pulled easy passes thanks to quick offense from T. Rupp and impenetrable defense from Bruiser Ego and Colonel Skirts. The team held Bear City to just nine points in the first eight minutes of the game while putting up 56 points of its own, including a 25-point double power jam for Animal Krack-her in the fifth jam.

A power start after an official review sent jammer Donner Doro to the penalty box for a misconduct in the previous jam seemed to bode well for Wasatch’s point streak, but a penalty to Wasatch’s jammer left Donner with an opening to get lead jammer out of the box and put up Berlin’s first points in four jams for a 56-9 score. Bear City held Wasatch scoreless for two more jams to pull the game within 30 points halfway through the period, but those were the last points Wasatch’s painfully effective defense would allow for seven more jams while adding points to its own score a handful at a time, pulling the score to 100-29 with single-digit minutes left in the half.

A well-timed official review from Bear City put the game on pause long enough for the team to collect itself, holding Wasatch’s jammer on her initial pass for more than a minute and ultimately sending her to the box for a forearm, allowing Bear City’s Mia Missile to skate endless laps for 24 points in one go. Bear City allowed no points in the next 4 jams and just seven points before halftime, bringing the score to 104-64.

“We had similar games in the last two games, so we said, the last game we won against Emerald City, also they led by 50-0 in the first minutes, so this is okay, “explained Berlin’s Mia Missile. “We can do this. If we freak out, we’ll lose, but if we just stay calm and play our game, we’ll get into it, which we did.”

Sookie Slaphouse made up for lost time with a 14-point power jam to start the second half, dancing through the pack on quarter-sized gaps just wide enough for a toe stop to sneak through Bear City’s defense. Revolving jammer penalties seemed to favor Bear City as it put up 13 points to Wasatch’s three on a two-minute jam, but a successful official review on a back block penalty given to Berlin’s Master Blaster -- then tied with Mia Missile for her team’s lead scorer -- was upgraded to an egregious back block warranting an expulsion.

Photo by Alexei Dodson

Bear City struggled to regroup, unable to score in five of the next six jams while Wasatch put up points in every jam for a score of 177-96 halfway through the period. A 19-point power jam for Mia Missile as she shoved her way past Penny Slain put Bear City over the 100-point mark, but Wasatch’s painfully effective defense led by Bruiser Ego and Colonel Skirts kept Bear City from truly gaining steam, including a Bear City power jam that resulted in 6 points -- for Wasatch’s jammer, that is, while her blockers kept Jane van Pain struggling in the back of the pack for nearly the whole jam before forcing a star pass.

With just a handful of minutes left in the game, Bear City started mounting a point run, chipping away at Wasatch’s lead in five of the game’s last six jams, including a 15-point power jam for Mia Missile. Wasatch’s lead proved too solid and its bench strategy unimpeachable, though, as Wasatch’s second official review in the half (retained after the team won its first initial review to expel Master Blaster) put another Bear City blocker in the box and let Wasatch catch its breath. With less than two minutes on the clock, Sookie Slaphouse snagged lead for Wasatch and ran the clock, but a track cut penalty meant she couldn’t call it off and gave Berlin a power jam -- but it did run the period clock down to zero, leaving a score of 203-152 when the jam clock ran out.

Despite the score, Berlin’s Mia Missile was more than pleased with the game.

“This is amazing. We came here as seed 10 and we got into this game for 5th place. We can’t lose anything. Even if we lose this game, we were winners because we came in as seed 10,” she said. “It was a great, very physical game, but also strategically -- it was fun to play this.”

Final Score

Wasatch Roller Derby (#5) 203 5th Place
Bear City Roller Derby (#10) 152 6th Place