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.

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