photo by Gil Leora

UPDATED! Resurrection is a dominant theme this time of year, and having been buried by the Double Crossers in January and the Fury in February, Hell’s Belles were hoping to roll back the stone on the 2011 season this past Saturday night at Chicago’s UIC Pavilion.  But Manic Attacker blockers had other plans for the rookie Belles.   Four Manic pack-masters—including Amy Nonamey , Mo Vengeance, Di Richmond, and Ada Hatelace—combined for 82% of the Manic’s defensive actions.  Nonamey celebrated the Kiester season with six jammer knock-downs, showing one red jammer to her seat multiple times.   When it was over, the Manics had pulled the shroud over the Belles, 121-59. Many of the Manic points came from the third and fourth jammers; Zoe Trocious (35) and Wreck N Shrew (36) consistently turned out short, single-digit jams all night.  While Wreck sat in the box with a major in the game’s third jam, the team’s enforcer, Amy Nonamy, punished Belle jammer Zombea Arthur.  Wreck jumped out of the box, slipped past the creeping pack, and the Manics were on top to stay.  In the middle of the first half, as the crowd begin pushing into the stadium’s upper deck for the second time this season, Trocious pushed the lead to 38-5 on the sole double-digit Manic jam.

 Despite the lopsided score, this was the most competitive half of the night.  For the first time this season, Belle jammers routinely fought through opposing blockers to force call-offs or put up points; the two teams went to the line 25 times in the first thirty minutes.   Manic ace Beth Amphetamine looked frustrated at times, scoring just eighteen points in the game despite taking 9 lead jams.  While speed allowed the Manics to control most of the quick jams whether they had the lead or not, Shocka Conduit kept the Belles in it at the half by scoring 17 points on power jams in the seventeenth and twenty-fifth.  The two teams left the floor after thirty minutes with the Manics up 46-27.

 The Belles cut the lead to 17 just minutes into the second half; with both teams down two skaters, Mya SSault blanketed Manic jammer Trocious, springing Arthur for two points.  The Manics went on a 32-7 run over the next fifteen minutes, however, punctuated by an 8-point jam by Trocious.  While Manic jammers had just 3 double-digit jams all night, the Blue Blockers dominated, limiting the Belles to zero points on 13 of their second-half jams.  Deb Autry put up eleven points in the eighteenth jam with help from Ssault, Bloody Elle, and Loco Chanel, but the Manics nailed the game down with 29 points in the last two regulation jams.  A grimacing Wreck, who was slow to get up from a collision with Bloody Elle several minutes earlier, scored ten and Ruth Enasia logged the game’s last nineteen on a pack of Belles who had no more to give.

 Although again doubled in points, the winless Belles continue to show monthly improvement on defense.  Scrappy Memphis transfer Bloody Elle had a huge impact in her first game, making each of the rookies around her better in the pack, and plugging a hole left by Dinah Party, who was injured in February and did not play.   Shocka Conduit was stellar on defense, a performance she will need to repeat for the Belles to be competitive down the stretch.  And Mya Ssault—who played only sparingly last year on a heavily veteran team—is making up for lost time; she played more jams than any other Belle and left it all on the floor. 

 Manic co-captains Amphetamine and Enasia will rise to meet the challenge of Fury speed when the two teams lock up on April 10th. The two had to be pleased by the way Wreck and Trocious—who took HOWTO.COM player-of-the-game honors—picked up the slack.  The winless Belles will look to sneak up on a wounded Double Crossers team.