Montréal, QC

By Whacks Poetic

Both Dallas Derby Devils from Dallas, Texas, USA and Kallio Rolling Rainbow from Helsinki, Finland faced disappointing losses yesterday to end up in this consolation bracket game today at 2016 International WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Montréal. While Kallio was very successful at attaining lead jammer status, their jammer penalties cost them whatever advantage they had gained against Rocky Mountain Rollergirls. Dallas looked strong yesterday against Montréal Roller Derby, but Montréal’s commitment to offense at jam starts interfered with their ability to set up their defense. Both teams were looking to tweak what hadn’t worked yesterday and stay out of the ninth place game tomorrow. Despite definite improvement from Kallio, Dallas would live to play again tonight, winning 181-81.

Photo by Marc-Antoine Vachon

After a 42-6 burst in the first two jams for Dallas, both teams settled down into a defensive grinding game. The vast majority of jams in the first half were one scoring pass or less, and the fourth jam even went two full minutes with no jammer breaking through the pack on their initial pass. Dallas slowly built their lead to 60-10 with just over fifteen minutes gone before a forearm penalty by lead jammer Leila Gay would allow Acute Pain to put up 13 points in a single jam for Dallas. Kallio saw some penalty trouble again with their jammers Pretty Sick, Sara Gilbert, and Leila Gay picking up 5 penalties in the first half and the Dallas jammers, playing a very patient game, drawing stopped blocks and multi-player penalties on the Kallio blockers. With five minutes left in the half, Kallio managed to get their first lead call without a subsequent jammer penalty on the scoring pass. Jammer, Pikanté, who played very little in their game yesterday, picked up a clean 4-0 pass before calling it and bringing the score 98-20 in favor of Dallas. Kallio also improved on their penalty killing, with Dallas jammer Acute Pain taking over a minute thirty to get lead jammer status after Sara Gilbert went to the box on a high block. The points continued to creep upwards however and the score at half stood 112-22 for the Americans.

Photo by Matthew Becker

The second half saw some major adjustments from Kallio. Great blocking from Macho Bitchu and T-Bag led to more Dallas jammers going to the box and more star passes to pivots, in particular Bayleigh Wheat and Animal Lee, to escape the pack. Kallio committed to higher levels of offense also and Dallas, while doing better with it than they did against Montréal, still had some trouble when they couldn’t set up their braced defensive positions. Pikanté continued her great jamming for Kallio, scoring only one less than her opponents when she was on the track. The next nearest jammer for Kallio was Pretty Sick, scoring 26 less than Dallas jammers. Dallas started running jams to take time off the clock and Kallio capitalized, often winning those jams. Kallio started to creep up a couple of points at a time, with all four Kallio jammers picking up lead and successful scoring passes. With three minutes left, Kallio had in fact scored more points in the half than Dallas with the score reading 167-81 for Dallas, but the first half lead for the Americans was insurmountable. Dallas would go on to win the last two jams 14-0 with lead jammer going to Jett and Miley Virus, respectively, and the continued impressive blocking from Mona Bruis’r keep Kallio from exiting the pack.

The Dallas Derby Devils continue their quest to retain fifth place, facing Detroit Derby Girls from Detroit, Michigan, USA at 4:00 p.m. today. Kallio Rolling Rainbow will be playing for ninth place at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow against Sun State Roller Girls from Brisbane, Australia.

Final Score

Dallas Derby Devils (#5) 181
Kallio Rolling Rainbow (#7) 81