Saturday, October 4, 2008

No Joy in Mudville.



I'll spare you the Mighty Casey bullshit. Nothing hidden in that headline. This morning our heroes, the WoJ, fell to the BAD girls from the B.ay A.rea D.erby, in a 120 to 95 ugly bout.

BAD established a lead quickly, WoJ did get within five in the first half. BAD had answers for whatever the Wheels threw at them. It was not pretty, the bout was sloppy, the feed kept crapping out, DNN was slow to update scoring and it was damn early. I'd love to offer some insight to the action but it took all my faculties just to process what I was seeing and keep things working on my end. Rhea added some much needed numbers, Blood Clottia played as amazing as yesterday, but much of the first half was Jammerless Jams. By half time the score had gone to BAD 55, Wheels of Justice 37.

The second half didn't get much better though the Wheels would pull with in 3.There were great jams by Rhea, Bumps, Clottia and Goodie. BAD did a great job controlling the pack and thus controlling the bout. They have a cast of creative jammers and the WoJ jammers just had no answer for getting through the pack. The WoJ struggled against a tough team and we lost, no excuses. BAD displayed great teamwork and that is a defining element to success in this sport.

The Wheels of Jusice started the year in some struggling bouts on the road, but did serve it up against Rat City and AZRD prior to the Battle Royale and have shown some elevation of their game. Though it's tough to lose they did play hard. Their tournament isn't over since they have at least one consolation bout.

The party is still on in November as the Rose City Rollers and Rat City play host to Nationals. I'm hoping to see my East favs, the Windy City Rollers here in Portland, but that will play out next weekend in Madison, WI. If you love the game you can't miss it.

Speaking of the Rats...

No surprises in Rat City's (2w) victory over Tucson (7w) yesterday. This was Rat City's opening bout in this Battle Royale but that's not why they won. Rat City won because they are a dominating team and that is just what they did to Tucson. Tucson was skating their second bout of the day, but frankly showed no spark from the beginning of the bout. Tuscon required ten minutes to post a point, which meant Rat City had already racked up 40! This was the turning point of this bout...

Between the four quick beers (after 5pm...Mom) on the empty stomach and the fact I had been OD'ed on online derby action, I lost interest. Not because I don't love Rat City, in the same way that any freaky Northwest native doesn't secrectly love the Mariners (....and all the great teams they bring out West that we can see). Frankly Rat City had this one, 113 to 22 at the half, and 170 to 81 at the buzzer. (Okay not a buzzer because of the stupid "jam on" rule but you know what I mean.) I'm gonna guess Rat City saved some energy in the second half for the Semi Finals tonight and who ever they face in game 16.

That opponent depends on who ever wins the bout that is on now, Rocky Mountain versus the Texas Roller Girls. The babbling chat box on the live feed from the bouts has loads of comments about "Austin what's the title". Well the title will have to go through Rat City first...

Check it out yourself


You can read all the action live at DNN boutcast.

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/leadjammer

Checkout the streaming video

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/houston-roller-derby-live .

1 comment:

The Coroner said...

I will miss seeing them heroic WOJ on the track at nationals. They area a great, regiono-jingoistically pride-inducing bunch of dedicated athletes.

I wish I were more like them.