Columbia, SC

By Lexistential Crisis

Rainy City Roller Derby (#7 seed) of Manchester, England, defeated the Santa Cruz Derby Girls (#6 seed) of Santa Cruz, California, USA, in Game 10 of the 2016 International WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Columbia. Santa Cruz came into this tournament ranked #23 internationally by WFTDA and Rainy City was only a few spots behind at #26. While Santa Cruz showed plenty of potential to win in the first half, Rainy City was able to control the second half and stay far enough ahead to prevent a Santa Cruz comeback for a 166-104 victory.

Photo by Louis E. Keiner

Both teams started the game with a five-jammer rotation, and primarily maintained that rotation throughout the whole game. Rainy City earned lead jammer status in the first six jams of the game and built up a score of 24. With 20 minutes left in the half TARAism earned lead and eight points for Santa Cruz to make the score 24-8. Santa Cruz inched closer to Rainy City throughout most of the first half, but never got closer than four points. Santa Cruz’s scoring was spread fairly evenly between all of their jammers and Shamrock N. Roller, who received a star pass and scored 13 points (the most of any Santa Cruz jammer in that half) around the 15-minute mark. Just as Santa Cruz narrowed the margin to four points, Rainy City took advantage of a Blocking with the Head penalty on Skirt Vonna-Gut to score 12 points. GoGo Chanel added to Rainy City’s lead with a 23-point jam to end the half with a score of 79-44.

Photo by Tom Iacuzio

Rainy City continued that momentum into the second half as they steadily increased their lead. Blockers Fay Roberts, Vivien Leigh-thal, and Ruthless Philly held together Rainy City’s defense and prevented Santa Cruz from getting within 60 points for the rest of the game. With 12 minutes left in the game, an injury timeout to clean up blood gave both teams a chance to rest. Santa Cruz used their timeouts in an attempt to get closer to Rainy City, but the differential remained in the 60-70 point range until the end of the game. Rainy City won the game with a score of 166-104.

Wilde scored 62 points for Rainy City and also earned lead jammer status in nine out of her 10 jams. Santa Cruz’s scoring was split between Roasted Pony, Queen Litigious, and Skirt Vonna-Gut who scored 28, 20, and 15 points, respectively.

Rainy City moves on in the consolation bracket to fight for Fifth Place against the winner of Game 11 (Columbia QuadSquad or Crime City Rollers) Sunday at 2 p.m. EST. Santa Cruz will play the loser of that game for Seventh Place Sunday at noon EST.

Final Score

Santa Cruz Derby Girls (#6) 104
Rainy City Roller Derby (#7) 166