Saturday night’s Derby double header put the Stepford Sabotage up against the Green Mountain Derby Dames (if you’d like to read more about the opening bout between The Yankee Brutals and Assault City, click here.).
Like the Yankee Brutals, the Stepford Sabotage went through a bit of a roster change in the offseason, including most notably, the promotion of some of last year’s Yankee Brutals. Congrats to all the new recruits to Sabotage!
Saturday’s bout against the Green Mountain Derby Dames (GMDD) was HARDCORE. As much demolition derby, as roller derby. The bout started off with a bang as Sabotage’s C. Mya Rage jammed against GMDD Star Slayer. Slayer started strongly, but Black Cherry ended the jam abruptly with her vindictive shoulder. Sadly, my camera was too slow to perfectly catch the moment of merciless savagery, though I did catch the aftermath.
Slayer was forced to end the jam, and thus began a bout of many many hits. In the next jam, GMDD Unita Hearse took a crack at Murphy’s Outlaw, but didn’t stop her from earning 10 points for the Sabotage. Shortly thereafter, Girl Fawkes knocked Sonic Euthanizer back, helping CT’s jammer Ramona Rotten add 5 points to the Stepford scoreboard.
Connecticut’s blockers were in their groove during this bout. Luciana Pulverotti had a beautiful block in the seventh to aid Pepper Grind-Her. Shortly thereafter (the 14th), Pepper came through with a clutch whip to help propel jamming Black Cherry to the front of the pack. Any better executed and Black Cherry may have been launched into orbit.
Curiously, the first half saw lead jamming status split fairly evenly between the teams, each with 8 successful leads. Despite this, Connecticut was following through with their lead status, averaging 5 points whenever lead jammer status was achieved – compared to only 1.38 for the visiting Vermonters. This could stand as testimony to the strong pack work of the Stepford Sabotage who prevented points with devastating blows, or the successful ability of the Connecticut jammers to weave through the pack even without a lead to force the GMDDs to end their jams early.
As a result of CT’s consistent scoring, the local team stood ahead 82 to 18 at halftime.
One fun aside to Derby comes from the awesome people that make up the teams and the crowd. All the players are working hard for the win, but they are willing to do so with a positive attitude and a great sense of humor. Take for example the Green Mountain water bottles – Hilarious.
Connecticut continued her dominance over the visiting team into the second half. Even considering the mighty blocks of GMDD Annie Cockledoux, who delivered a mean blow against Ramona Rotton in the third, the Connecticut girls could not be slowed. Ramona had back to back jams with 14 and 5 points, followed by 8 more from Rage, and 4 from Pepper. The Green Mountain ladies got some life back as the bout slowed to its conclusion (Star Slayer and TerminateHer scoring 19 points between them in the last five jams), but it wasn’t enough to overcome the consistency of the ladies in black.
The night concluded with a final score of 154 to 59 in favor of the Stepford Sabotage.
Statistics!!!
Lead Scorers:
Black Cherry 51 points (6 lead in 10 jams)
Ramona Rotton 37 points (2 lead in 7 jams)
TerminateHer 21 points (6 lead in 12 jams)
Pernicious D. Licious (2 lead in 6 jams)
Penalty Queens:
Annie Cockledoux: 6 Majors! Dang!
Ramona Rotton and Murphy’s Outlaw: 5 majors
MVPs!
Girl Fawkes! and Terminather!
Awesome job to all the players, officials, and helpers. It was a hugely successful night as evidenced by the sell-out crowd and the mass consumption of PBR. For more information on Connecticut Roller Derby, check out the CTRG website here. The next bout will be on April 16th. Mark your calendars and get there early, hopefully there will be another sell-out crowd.
Thank you Mike for yet another great recap!! It’s always nice to see you!
*I look so calm flying through the air in that picture! It’s almost like I’m at peace with the fact I’m about to hit the ground…Hard!* hahaha.
Awesome skating Black Cherry! I pity the Roller Girls on the receiving end of your blocks – yet you’re right, you look so calm and collected. You’d probably be a great secret service agent.
was it just me, or did the crowd get smaller with the CTRG/GMDD bout?
That always happens with double headers. A lot of people come with small children and it starts to get too late for them