Championship Bout Recap!
(Courtesy of the tasty Bustylicious from the Riot Girls)
It was a dead heat for the whole game. Riot Girls coming out a little bit ahead - but never more than three points - of the Bad Reps. In the third things changed a bit…. the Bad Reputations came back from a second period lull and fought like crazy.
The last jam was insane! The Riot Girls were down 10 points - 104 to 94 and just under 2 mins left on the clock. Luludemon jamming against Cinderhella. Luludemon hit the pack first. I was playing back blocker, Cinderhella came in with an elbow aimed at my face and I dodged the blow. Unfortunately for her the ref saw and waived her off the track before she even made a first pass through the pack. As soon as she was off I skated up to Lulu (who was still fighting her way through the pack) I grabbed her by the waist and started shoving her through. I screamed in her ear “THEIR JAMMER IS IN THE BOX! WE CAN STILL WIN!” and she took off like lighting. She made two clean passes scoring us - that’s right, 10 points. With Cinderhella in the box scoring 0, that made the score at the end of the 3rd period 104 to 104!!
That’s right! The TCRG saw their first overtime jam in their first ever championship game! So crazy. I’m sure you know how overtime works, but in case you’ve forgotten - 2mins, no lead jammer, scoring starts on the first pass, most points in that single jam wins. We had Trixi Trippin Chix facing off against Rollergirl with both of them up against some crazy blocking lineups. At the end of Trixi’s first pass through, Lamb Baste-her chased her out, cocked an elbow and smashed her in the face…Trixi made two successful passes and scored us 8 points. Rollergirl made two successful passes and was right at the back of the pack as we hit the 10 second mark. The buzzer went and we had to wait for the refs to confer on the final score…
Rollergirl passed 3 Riot Girls right at the end of the jam scoring 11 points for her team.
Final score: Bad Reputations 115 to Riot Girls 112.
I’m not going to blame our loss on an elbow, or a particular jam, or my specific issues with some of the calls the refs made throughout the game, or calls from the bench, or any one thing at all. With a game this close there are hundreds of little things we could have done differently to change the outcome. It was a well-fought battle from both sides, and I’m glad to have been a part of such an amazing game. Now TCRG is *really* playing roller derby!
(Photos courtesy of the adorable Nicolas Charest and the debonair Bob Ayers)
