photo by Gil Leora

Chicago’s Windy City Rollers home league put a bow on the 2010 season Saturday night at the UIC Pavilion.  The Fury, unbeaten since a season-opening loss to the Manic Attackers, met expectations with a 130-71 blowout win over the injury-ridden Double Crossers in the Ivy King Cup Championship. 

 With six Windy City All-Stars and three Second Wind (B-Team) players on their sixteen-woman roster, the Fury cut through the league like butter on the way to a 5-1 record.  In this one, Kola Loka, the league’s leading scorer, rang up six points on the opening jam, and the Fury never looked back.  Up by 33 at the start of the thirteenth jam, Loka lined up against Crosser Captain Julia Rosenwinkel, who came into the game with an injured leg.  After a series of hits from The Fury,  the Crossers' leading scorer would not return and finished the game scoreless. 

 The Crossers played with a short bench all season, and with Nina Millimeter and Sassy Squash both off skates for this game, the Crossers had too little muscle inside and too little speed on the jam line.  Indy Cent led the Crossers with 41, and Karmageddon, who skated in 91% of the jams, played over her head, registering 42 offensive and defensive actions in the loss.  The Crossers held the Fury to four points for a five-jam stint in the second half, while Indy Cent put up 10 points in the ninth jam which would be the Crossers' second biggest jam of the night.  Even as the Fury began to rack up penalties midway through the second half, leaving the Crossers with scoring advantages, Fury play in the pack was dominant.  Indy Cent had 27 of her 41 points in the second half, but Tori Adore and HOWCOOL.COM Player of the Game Sargentina held all other Crosser jammers to 16 points total after intermission.

Full recap coming soon...

Fans were treated to a benefit game to open the night; line-ups made from the Hell’s Belles, Manic Attackers, and Haymarket Rioters (the WCR farm team) were punctuated by some veterans who now play only on the travel squad.  Athena DeCrime, Ying O’Fire, Varla Vendetta, and Hoosier Mama gave fans a peek of what to look for when Boston comes calling on July 31.

photo by Gil Leora

Shocka Conduit gave the Belles a 14-0 cushion on her first jam, and Pominatrix scored nine in the eighth. In the ninth, Manic sophomore Zoe Trocious cut the lead to 28-19 by taking advantage of two Belles in the penalty box. With a 5-3 advantage at the start of the tenth, Amphetamine seized lead jam and just as quickly cut the track, handing a powerjam to Conduit, who circled for 14.

For the second time in two bouts Hell’s Belles sharply limited playing time for many of their rookies and sold out to a punishing two-jammer rotation. Missing co-captain Hermione Danger, still out with an injury, Conduit and Deb Autry wore the star for 36 of the game’s 44 jams. Key to the strategy, however, was Pominatrix, who jammed tentatively earlier in the year but spelled Conduit and Autry with aggression, speed, and agility. Pominatrix put on a remarkable show of legerdemain in the 12th jam.  She hopped through blocking to take lead, and then executed a deft inside-outside move to register two grand slams with Ruth Enasia in the penalty box. Enasia stormed back on the track with determination, and despite solid blocking by Autry and Mya Ssault—who played 35 solid jams and led both teams with 26 defensive actions—managed to pick up four. Pominatrix finished with 26 points after not jamming at all in the last bout, and led the Belles with 3.71 points-per-jam.

Up by 24 at the start of the 14th jam, the Belles had roused the crowd to synchronized cheers they’d not heard since retirement cut through the team like a killer virus last June. But with four minutes left in the half, the Manics started leaning forward off their heels. A 13-point jam by Amphetamine cut the Belles’ lead to 14 with four minutes left, Enasia added three more in the 19th, and the half ended with Belles up 63-52.

The two teams scored just six points total through the first four jams of the second half before Conduit, in a display of sheer will, racked up nine in the fifth. Di Richmond trapped a rookie Belle blocker in the seventh and Conduit was sent to the box, setting up Amphetamine for a ten-point jam. The Blue Blur was back in this one, averaging 5.0 points-per-jam, leading Manic scorers with 45 points, and hauling in Player-of-the-Game honors.

Smart jamming by Enasia and Trocious allowed the Manics to inch back into the game, and the two teams battled for three consecutive jams with the Belles clinging to a two-point lead. The Belles were gassed, and penalties mounted; Team Red, with 65% of the game’s majors at the end, couldn’t match the clean play that kept them in it late against the Fury earlier in the month.

When Conduit managed to break through the pack in the 22nd jam with two teammates in the box, it looked like the Belles just might pull it off.  With 3:45 left, however, Conduit was sent off for cutting the track, giving Amphetamine a power jam and a 94-91 lead—the Manics first of the game. An official time out ended with Ssault heading to the dressing room on penalties with under two minutes to play and two more Belles in the box. Trocious grabbed four points and called it, and with 35 seconds to go, down by five, Deb Autry lined up against Ruth Enasia for the season’s last jam.

Seconds later, Autry was heading to the box with a fourth minor, and for the second straight bout, the Belle’s bench watched the final second tick off with the opposition on a powerjam. With the game clock at :00, Enasia rang up ten points as the Manic bench encouraged her to pour it on, a decision that will no doubt leave the Belles simmering until the 2011 season begins.

The Manic Attackers finished the season at 3-3 while the Belles cash out at 0-6. Members of both teams will play in the annual Black/White contest, guest-coached by a couple of happy auction winners who will draft players from each team. That game, on June 5^th, will heat up the Pavilion Skatecourt for the showdown between The Fury and the Double Crossers in the Ivy King Cup Championship.

The two teams spent the first 14 minutes in a defensive war, with the Fury setting the tone early. In the fifth jam, Sargentina put consecutive big hits on Crossers Donna Party and Sassy Squash; when Ska Face was sent to the box on a major, with help from Jackie Daniels and Go-Go Hatchet, Sargentina orchestrated a fierce penalty kill on Party’s powerjam. She would finish the game with an eye-popping 30 offensive/defensive actions and be just the second blocker this season to win HOWCOOL.COM Player-of-the-Game honors.

The Fury gave the Crossers a bit of their own medicine, winning the slow-down game that the Crossers used to grind down the Manics in February. The two teams started the 11th jam with the Crossers up just 12-9. Loka finally broke it open with a nine point jam against full-strength blocking, and teammate Ska Face followed with two grand slams in the 12th. Indy Cent picked up nine of her 23 points in the 14th, and two jams later Julia Rosenwinkel stormed out of the box with :55 left in the jam, leaving Adore and Red Zeppelin in her wake on the way to nine points.  Down just 37-33 with 2:15 left in the half, the Fury took lead jam on the last two rounds. Daniels ended the half on what has become her signature in this first WCR season since transferring from Grand Raggedy—the four-point hit-and-quit.

After half-time, despite some inspired play by Crosser blocker Karmageddon and Pivot/Jammer Nina Millimeter, the game never felt close. The Fury built a 34-point lead midway through the second half by controlling the pack; Hatchet, Adore, and Sargentina engineered walls of white up front, and Fury jammers Loka and Daniels played physical off the line against the Crossers’ leading scorer, Julia Rosenwinkel. The Crosser Captain, who seemed to wring just about everything possible from her injury-plagued team this season, went pointless on four of her last six jams against withering defense. Loka doubled Rosenwinkel in points, 41-19 to lead all WCR jammers at the end of the season with 273 points.

The Fury—with six top-shelf All-Stars on the roster—simply out-muscled the Crossers down the stretch and won pulling away. In a respectful gesture to players who saw little game play all year, Rosenwinkel emptied the Crosser bench in the last three jams; Tina Flay, Apple Hackintosh, Abbey, and Joanie Utah got a chance to absorb some hits from the Fury, who never let off the gas.

These two teams will line up for the third time this season and all the marbles on Championship Saturday, June 5^th. Think this one is all sewn up?  Just ask the Manic Attackers, who needed every second of their game to squeak past the winless Hell’s Belles on Saturday. In roller derby, anything can happen and probably will. See you there.

photo by Gil Leora

The Windy City Rollers All-Stars kicked off their 2010 season on Sunday morning in a closed bout against the North Star Roller Girls’ Supernovas. Windy City shut out North Star 15-0 in the first 5 jams, but the window of opportunity opened for the Supernovas with a 9-0 power jam for Jawbreaker in the sixth jam. WCR’s Varla Vendetta jammed next, putting 14 points unanswered on the board as her pack (All-Star rookies Di Richmond and Sargentina, along with vet Hoosier Mama) kept Supernova jammer Katarina Hit tied up for two minutes, taking Windy City to 29-9 10 minutes in.

North Star and Windy City would trade lead jammer status for the next nine jams, with Windy City only growing their lead a point to 48-27. A 7-0 run by Katarina Hit in jam 17 put the Supernovas in striking distance at 48-34. However, 14 points would be the closest North Star would get for the rest of the game, as WCR put 20 more on the board in the next three jams to close the half 68-37.

The Supernovas started off the second half strong, with Medusa and Jawbreaker getting lead jam back-to-back. Windy City transfer Jackie Daniels changed the momentum in jam 3, securing lead and a quick 5-0. WCR would get lead in the next 8 jams, shutting out NSRG in the process.

During that 44-0 run, WCR rookie Ska Face jammed for the first time against veteran Jawbreaker. Jawbreaker’s aggressive defense racked up enough minors to earn her a trip to the box and Ska got 9-0 on that power jam. Varla Vendetta had the game’s biggest score in the next jam at 18-0.

North Star ended WCR’s run in jam 12 with a quick 4-0 by Roller Vixen, but that still left North Star on the wrong side of 114-47 with under 15 minutes to go. At that point, the Supernova jammers shifted their focus to play defense outside the engagement zone to prevent multiple Windy City passes. Even with this more defensive play, in the last 4 jams of the game, WCR was able to go 27-3 (17 of those points by Shocka Conduit) to a score of 159-59 as time expired.

The WCR All-Stars are in action next weekend, as they face regional rival Madison’s Dairyland Dolls at the BrewHaha. North Star’s Supernovas will be in action next against Carolina and Nashville at June’s ECE.

photo by Gil Leora

UPDATED! When the last drop of sweat had been dropped Saturday night at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, the Double Crossers had earned a spot in the Windy City Rollers Ivy King Cup Championship game on June 5th. With several key veterans off skates and three blockers playing over 85% of the jams, the Crossers thumped the defending champion Manic Attackers, 121-91. 

 The Double Crossers showed up intending to finish off the Manics and avoid a second-place bottle-neck heading into the last game of the season on May 22nd. With a win, the Manics' route to the championship game would be blocked only the winless Hell’s Belles. The Manics jumped out to an 8-0 lead on slick-looking jams by Beth Amphetamine and Ruth Enasia, but the Crossers crept back to tie the score at 8 in the eighth. In the tenth, Manic jammer Wreck N Shrew was playing tight defense on her Crosser counterpart, Julia Rosenwinkel, when first one and then two Manics were sent to the box. Rosenwinkel cut loose for a grand slam and 4 more before calling it. The Crossers went on a 19-5 run over the next four jams despite some stalwart penalty-killing effort by Amphetamine in the fourteenth.  Di Richmond, in her third season as a Windy City Roller, had more than double the number of offensive and defensive actions, 38, than the second most effective Manic blocker. Increasingly agile in traffic, Richmond shows an ability to move from offense to defense and back again on consecutive strides.  Manic fans have not forgotten Malice in Chains just yet, but Richmond has become the Manic to watch in the pack.

 With the Crossers up 38-13 going into the fifteenth and the crowd growing quiet, Richmond clamped down Crosser jammer Donna Party, allowing Wreck to register a grand slam; Party joined two Crosser blockers in the box and Wreck put up 15 more before the whistle blew four times. Wreck scored 38 points on thirteen jams to lead all Manic scorers, picking up the slack for Zoe Trocious, who was ill over the past couple of weeks and played only sparingly as a blocker in the second half. The Manics cut the Crosser lead to 38-37 in the sixteenth on an athletic jam by Amphetamine, but clogged the penalty box on the next jam, handing Rosenwinkel, the league’s leading scorer, a free pass. The six-year veteran put up 19 before calling it off, and the Crossers went to halftime up 57-39.    

 While the Manics seemed to lose this one in the penalty box, racking up 62% of the bout’s majors and 42 team minutes, the Crossers played with typically astute pack awareness, anchored by three players who never seemed to leave the track--Georgia on Yer Behind, Karmageddon, and Norma Lee Wright. It was Reina Chaos, however, who had a career game, with a remarkable +71 points on 31 jams as a blocker. Rosenwinkel exploited Manic penalties when she could, but she was consistently strong against full-strength blocking as well. She scored  67 total points, taking lead on thirteen of seventeen jams and giving up just 15 points to the opposing jammer. 

 The Manics held the Crossers scoreless for five consecutive jams early in the second half, but they couldn’t make a significant dent in the lead. Playing short-handed much of the second half, the Manics gave up ghost points in 17 jams. Ruth Enasia milked the most out of a power jam in the fifteenth, pulling the Manics to within 10. The Manics filled the box again in the nineteenth, however, and Indy Cent iced the win with a fifteen-point jam.

 In the last regular-season game of 2010 on May 22nd, the Manic Attackers will face a Hell’s Belles team that appears to be catching fire just as the season flames out. The Manics will be looking to avoid following a championship season with a losing record, while the Belles hope to dodge a winless season. The Double Crossers look forward to meeting the Fury, pitting Rosenwinkel against Super Freak Kola Loka. Less than 10 points separate these two jammers at the top of the league scoring standings, and both teams are 4-1. Each is assured a place in the championship game, but there are too many chips on the table at the end of the regular season for either team to check.

photo by Gil Leora

UPDATED! The Fury stormed into Chicago’s UIC Pavilion on Saturday night aboard a 3-game winning streak. The orange crush devastated Hell’s Belles by 97 in February, jumping past 100 points in the third jam of the second half, and conventional wisdom expected the Belles to collapse like a Louisiana levee in this game, too.   But Belle captains Shocka Conduit and Hermione Danger changed up the game plan; 6 of the least experienced Belles who dressed for the game played in a minimal amount of jams, and the Belles came at the Fury hard with 3 jammers in heavy rotation.   The teams’ two veteran captains squared off in the game’s last jam with the Belles well within striking distance, but when it was over the Fury had iced a 125-110 win and a place in the Ivy King Cup championship game on June 5th. 

 Danger--playing her first game since an injury sidelined her for the April bout--took advantage of a major penalty on the Fury jammer in the third, pushing the Belles to their biggest lead of the season, 21-0. Fury jammers took the next four lead jams, however, including Kola Loka’s ten-point run in the seventh.  After that, Conduit, Danger, and second-year stand-out Deb Autry jammed exclusively for the Belles, and the three of them kept team red in it until the last jam of the half.  With just 30 seconds left, and up by just 12, Tori Adore and Ivy Sedation  held up Danger, allowing Fury jammer Ska Face to bolt around the outside and into the lead. The Belles were caught in perhaps the biggest pack mismatch of the game, and when Danger was sent off for cutting the track, Ska Face cut up Belle blocking for 15 points to put the Fury up 69-45 at the half. 

 Kids from School of Rock, Chicago, took over jamming at halftime, rocking an appreciative crowd with early MTV hits. As one astute observer pointed out, it may have been the first time in roller derby history that Mötley Crüe and Skid Row have been heard back-to-back at a bout. School of Rock played several sets with varying line-ups, prompting really painful-looking air guitar from some, uh, well-meaning skaters.

 Hell’s Belles put up 10 points in the first two jams of the second half, and the two teams traded punches until two huge jams on either side of an Official time out.  Loka scored 20 of her 68 total in the seventh as Sonya Mouthshut, Dee Monica, and Tori Adore opened big splits.  Then in the eighth, with the Fury penalty box packed full, Deb Autry put up 17 of her 42, cutting the Fury lead to 22.  Autry benefitted from Fury penalties on her two biggest jams by scoring 2 ghosts points in each.
 
The Belles fell into penalty trouble midway through the second half; Ska, Loka, and Jackie Daniels sliced and diced their way to a 115-73 lead with 14 minutes left. Shocka Conduit rallied the Belles with a 20-point twelfth that may have been the most interesting jam of the night. Ska Face was sent off for cutting the track, but missed the box twice, extending the Belle advantage. Conduit put a highlight reel move on Ivy Sedation and then coaxed Take-Out Box outside the engagement zone before allowing her a hit, leaching another major out of the Fury. The two teams scored just 16 points over the next 8 minutes. With Pominatrix, Bloody Elle, and Mya Ssault playing over their heads in the pack, the Belles scored 12 of those and might have had more save stout defensive play from the Fury’s Adore, Sedation, and Sargentina, who the fans voted blocker of the game. Those three, along with Dee Monica and Mouthshut, picked up for three Fury veterans who did not dress for the game—Go-Go Hatchet, Juana Rumbel, and Red Zeppelin.

 Down 12 with 55 seconds to go, the Belles looked like believers; their pack was at full strength.  Conduit, with 3 minors, called her own number to jam against Loka for the game. When Conduit cut the track in an effort to take lead jam, Loka floated around behind the pack, killing the game clock and much of the jam clock, forcing Conduit to exit the box and race up behind her before calling it. 

 This was the game Belles fans had been waiting for. In the last minute a roster full of rookies, many of whom sacrificed precious playing time for the chance to see the team within striking distance at the end, sat on the edge of their seats with All-Star on All-Star for the win. But as has been the case so often this season, there was just too much Kola Loka, who walked away with HOWCOOL.COM Player-of-the-Game honors. 

 The Fury will finish the regular season on May 22nd against the Double Crossers in a preview of the Ivy King Cup Championship game. The Belles, likely feeling closer than they have all year to their first win, will close the season against the Manic Attackers.

photo by Gil Leora

UPDATED! 

This past bout marked the beginning of the second half of the Windy City Rollers home-league season. The Fury lined up against the Manic Attackers at the UIC Pavilion looking to avenge an opening-day loss in which Ruth Enasia ran wild. Since January, however, The Fury has risen like a supercell on a hot Kansas afternoon, and when it was all over, the Fury had all but blown out dreams of a Manic return to the championship, 110-85.

 The Manics looked like they might give the Fury a game, jumping out to a quick 8-point lead after two jams and sustaining at least a ten-point advantage across much of the first fifteen minutes. Beth Amphetamine leveraged a penalty on Go-Go Hatchet in the sixth jam and split Tori Adore and Sonya Mouthshut on her way to seven points. In the eleventh, she put up 8 more when Jackie Daniels was sent off for cutting the track. 
 
Unable to spring the dangerous Kola Loka early on, the Fury lined up for the fourteenth jam down two skaters and looking for a spark. It came in the form of a fifteen-point jam by Ska Face, who was able to exploit a cutting the track major on Beth Amphetamine. The Fury seized momentum, mounting a 36-0 run over a seven-minute span late in the half behind superior offensive blocking led by Tori Adore. The Fury finished the game with five players in double-digit offensive actions. Most impressive might have been third-year player Ivy Sedation, who made the most of her 9 jams with eleven assists. Hatchet, Sargentina, and Red Zeppelin repeatedly slammed the door on Manic jammers before the lightning bolts gave the star to Amy Nonamey for first time this season; she too failed to score.

The Manics seemed to get untracked in the seventeenth. Di Richmond, who anchored Manic defense all night along with pivot Rose Feratu, held up Ska Face, allowing Enasia to pick up lead jammer. Wreck N Shrew laminated Jackie Daniels and Mo Vengeance supplied a well-practiced whip to propel Enasia to two of the jam’s six points. The two teams went to the locker rooms with the Fury up 59-39.

 Fans seemed to find the half-time circus act as enjoyable as the unfolding bout. Macha--a remarkably durable pair of young women who might just as well be called “Who Needs Weights?”--cleaned and jerked each other for several minutes to an appreciative crowd. As one skater put it afterward, “Doing lunges is hard enough without some girl crawling up your back.”

 The two teams traded penalty trouble early in the second half, and while the Fury didn’t look particularly explosive, they held the Manics scoreless on 8 of the first twelve jams to generate a thirty-nine point lead with 11:35 left in the game. Ska Face rang up another ten in the fourteenth jam, slipping around Beth Amphetamine for the final points. Amphetamine played valiantly in this game as a blocker, and Ruth Enasia scored 14 of her 34 total on the next to last jam of the game, leaving the final score closer than second-half play indicated. 

 The Fury are now tied at 3-1 with the Double Crossers at the top of the standings. The Fury look to increase their all important points-for total in a tune-up against the winless Hell’s Belles on May 1st before facing the Crossers on May 22nd. Interleague-transfer jammers Ska Face (45) and the remarkably fluid Jackie Daniels (25) have partnered with Fury veteran Kola Loka (35) to form an awesome threesome; the three scored 105 of the Fury’s 110 points. Ska Face collected HOWCOOL.COM Player of the Game Honors and sounded at game’s end like the Fury intends to keep pushing their three-game winning streak. The announcer, Mouthpiece, asked her if the team would go all the way to the championship. “It’s already done,” she said.

photo by Gil Leora

UPDATED! OK, so it wasn’t quite like Joe Louis knocking Max Schmeling cold in 124 second at Yankee Stadium in 1938, but if you were late getting back to your seat at the start of the Double Crossers-Fury match-up this past Saturday night at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, you missed the fight. The Fury turned out the lights on the Crossers, 128-51, and the damage was done early. The Fury lost to the Manics in January and the Crossers beat the Manics last month by nearly identical scores; conventional wisdom figured these two teams to take it to the wire. But this game had one lead change—at just about 124 seconds in. By the third jam, already up 12-2, the Fury’s Dee Monica catapulted Jackie Daniels into the clear with a textbook whip and The Fury was off and running. Orange jammers pounded the Crossers in the first half with a devastating combination: Ska Face put up 24 of her 34 points in her first five jams; Daniels, who went on to be named Player of the Game, scored points on every jam; 2008 WCR MVP Kola Loka, who scored 41 total points, racked up 15 late in the half by floating past a pair of Crosser blockers—one of the moments of penalty trouble for the Silent Assassins, who actually had fewer total minutes in the box. 

 Crosser Pivot Norma Lee Wright ignited fans in black in the fourteenth jam by yanking co-captain Julia Rosenwinkel to lead jammer status; Georgia on Yer Behind shut down Ska, and Julia Rosenwinkel bullied her way around for four points. When the jam ended, Daniels’ Roller-blue Minx quads flashed on the jumbotron as part of the “Guess the Gear” fan participation game. Before a fan could name her, Daniels was the lead jammer, circling the pack and scoring 9 points. It was that sort of night for the Crossers. The Fury took lead jam twelve times and scored points on thirteen of eighteen jams on the way to an 85-14 halftime lead. 

 The Crossers began the second half with what appeared to be greater commitment to the slow-down game that they used effectively against the Manics. Indycent and Julia Rosenwinkel each had solid jams in the second half; Rosenwinkel scored 23 of her 31 points after intermission, with 13 coming on a pretty thirteenth jam in which she registered two grand slams and picked up deft blocking by Nina Millimeter, Sassy Squash, and Georgia on Yer Behind. Those three skaters hung tough, accounting for 54 of the Crossers’ 77 defensive actions. 

 But the Fury often dominated the pack; Tori Adore, Sargentina, and Red Zeppelin (skating this bout as Brick Fonzo), slammed the door repeatedly on Crosser jammers. The Fury lost focus in the second half, running up the majority of their 112 penalties and outscoring the Crossers by just 3 points in the last thirty minutes.  So, how dominant was the Fury? The Crossers scored just 11 points all night when the Fury was at full strength.

 And “full strength” appears to be how the Fury intends to play this season, mindful of the importance of point spread if there is a tie at the top of the standings at season’s end. In the lead by 80 points with minutes left, Big Orange made few adjustments to the rotation.

 The WCR league season lurches forward again in just two weeks, featuring a complete Fury team against the unpredictable Manic Attackers, both at 2-1. These two teams put on a speed skating clinic when they met to open the season. The Manics won that game by 18, but the Fury is pulling no punches.  Joe Louis has nothing on these ladies.

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.