Tucson, AZ

By Bones

Making their first visit to the WFTDA Playoffs, Team United Roller Derby showed their strength in their game against the Terminal City Rollergirls, putting up a huge fight in a very equally matched bout. The teams put on an exciting game with several lead changes. Team United came out of the gate fighting, helped by power jams in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th jams of the game – a recurring theme of the first half. Strong defense by both teams in this bout held both jammers to a slow crawl. A huge jam from Terminal City’s Evada Peron put them back in the game with 22 points scored. As she took a stint in penalty box, the Terminal defense kept the Team United jammer to just 1 point in the jam. This set the tone for the following jams in the half. Team United had better success keeping their jammers out of the box, with 6 power jams for Team United and 0 of power jams to Terminal City, though 25 penalties were awarded to each team by halftime. Period 1 Terminal holding a very slight 102-97 lead, still very much anyone’s game.

Photo by Bill Zingraf

The second half started with a bang -- a 19-point jam by Terminal’s Maiden Sane that seemed to ride the continued momentum from the first half. However, Team United quickly shut down their opponents’ momentum, gaining lead jammer status and nickel-and-diming their way back through the next few jams. An official review gave Terminal City a chance to regroup, and Maiden Sane came back from the break with a 22-point jam solidifying their lead and making this game Terminal’s.

Both teams’ defensive walls were very tough for jammers to get through, with some amazing one-on-one blocking as well. Multiple times Thunder Cat for Team United held the Terminal jammer on her own with perfectly timed transitions. Terminal’s Flower Plow’her showed some strong lateral movements, holding the Team United jammer on a power jam alone behind the Team United offense.

Photo by Donna Olmstead

Team United stashed the jammer star during a few scoring passes, picking up zero points for all the work to get through, which cost them points in the long run. On the opposite bench, Terminal gave up several more power jams, allowing Team United to gain points while their jammer was out of commission.

The top scorers were Maiden Sane with 101 points and Kim Janna with 40 pts for Terminal City and LoLo Gunz with 68 points and Je NE Sais Quois with 39 points for Team United.

Terminal City will play the Mad Rollin’ Dolls for 5th Place at 2 pm MST Sunday. Team United will play the Charm City Rollergirls for 7th Place at 12 pm MST.

FINAL SCORE

Terminal City Rollergirls (#7) 196
Team United Roller Derby (#6) 171