Tucson, AZ

By The Oxford Commakaze

The Terminal City Rollergirls of Vancouver, British Columbia, completed their sweep of Canadian Division 1 teams in 2015 with a huge 328-90 win over Tri-City Roller Derby of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, in the first game of the 2015 International WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Tucson. Although Tri-City tripled its halftime score throughout the second half, it was not nearly enough to stop the onslaught of Terminal City points, led by Maiden Sane’s thoroughly insane 171 points to lead her team’s scoring.

Photo by Bill Zingraf

The game kicked off with a relatively quiet 9-0 jam for Terminal as both teams remained laser-focused on defense, but a consistent point stream -- not to mention two power jams -- blew the score to 54-0 eight minutes into the game. Terminal showed no signs of slowing, particularly as Tri-City found itself in serious penalty trouble early in the game, allowing Terminal’s jammers to make even quicker work of the pack.

Tri-City finally made it on the board 10 minutes into the half on a two-minute jam that allowed the team 5 points, but Terminal still outscored Tri-City 9-5 in that jam thanks to bone-jarring offensive hits from Palmer. This was the first of multiple times in the half that Tri-City would be held to five points on double power jams. As Terminal focused in on devastatingly rock-solid defense, Tri-City had trouble focusing on both offense and defense, allowing Terminal’s jammers to easily push the pack apart for quick points despite the defensive efforts of Tri-City’s Fraxxure. Although Tri-City’s jammers skated clean, providing just one power jam opportunity for Terminal in the first half, and were able to put points in the board in the last two jams of the half thanks to a series of jammer penalties to Terminal’s Red Sonja, the halftime score of 133-29 left a huge deficit for Tri-City to overcome.

Photo by Isaac Anaya

Tri-City put points on the board right away in the second half with a four-point hit-and-quit jam for Crazy Squirrel and started to gain a little steam, putting up points in 5 of the first 7 jams, Terminal’s juke-y jammer maneuvers and confident blocking corps still put up 35 points to Tri-City’s 25 during that time. Those were the last points Tri-City would put on the board for five more jams while Terminal crossed the 200-point threshold halfway through the period, as its blockers continued to peel apart Tri-City’s defensive layers for their jammers while still stymieing Tri-City’s beleaguered jammer corps.

Despite the clear lead for Terminal, built to an unshakeable 237-59 with less than ten minutes left in the game, Tri-City was still looking to snap up points through any gap Terminal might leave, which it did with a massive 23-point power jam for Crazy Squirrel, riding offense from AnneX and Fraxxure to rack up the points while her blockers held Ann O’War scoreless. But despite squirreling away another lead jammer call and four more points for The Honey Badger of Tri-City, a cut track penalty left the door open for Maiden Sane to score an outrageous 34 points -- only to top her own score just two jams later with a 39-point power jam, running the jam clock out with a final score of 328-90.

Terminal City will move on to play the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls of Oakland, Calif., today at 4 p.m. MST. Tri-City will play the loser of tonight’s game between the Charm City Roller Girls of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls of Denver, Colorado, tomorrow at 12 p.m. MST.

Final Score

Terminal City Rollergirls (#7) 328
Tri-City Roller Derby (#10) 90