DCRG vs. Bleeding Heartland

Louisville came out in droves to support our favorite team as we filled up the venue ready for the start of a new DCRG season.

Bout recap by: Superfan Thom Schneider
Derby City Roller Girls vs Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls, February 18, 2012

This past Saturday evening was the 2012 season opener for the Derby City Roller Girls at their new host location, Champs Rollerdrome. DCRG hosted the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls of Bloomington Indiana. Louisville came out in droves to support our favorite team as we filled up the venue ready for the start of a new DCRG season.

The bout started off slowly with both teams playing very defensively causing the first 2 jams to be scoreless. Both teams, but mostly DCRG, repeatedly used the "scrum line" strategy so "no pack" would be called and the jammers could start sooner. However, with jam 3 Bleeding Heartland really started stepping up their jamming, scoring 41 points in 6 jams while managing to shut down Derby City's jammers. That isn't to say Derby City didn't put up competition. Sharon Moonshine, Jimi HitTrix, and Lil Bo Teeps had significant hits against Bleeding Heartland during these jams.

It was Shellnita Crutch who got the ball rolling for Derby City in Jam 9 getting 5 points on the board. It wasn't long after that the other DCRG jammers, Fury Fae, Mel O" Drama, and Lil Rage of Sunshine also lapped the opposing team to score points. However, Bobbi McGuillotine, Mostly Harmless, and Kaka Caliente of Bleeding Heartland managed to dominate the jamming side of this period. The score at halftime was Derby City 32 and Bleeding Heartland 107.

The second half of the bout started off on the right foot for Derby City with Mel O" Drama jamming and scoring 9 points. She was assisted by Celia Graves who used her excellent blocking ability to pick off the Bleeding Heartland players making way for Mel O" Drama. Bleeding Heartland must have decided that kind of scoring was unacceptable and answered with an impressive 15 points from Shock 'N Roll in the successive jam. This period in general seemed to be bogged down with penalty after penalty, especially cutting the track which on one occasion caused the crowd to erupt with booing at the refs when it was called on Liv Fearless on her first time jamming this game. It was difficult to follow who was coming in and out of the penalty box as the players seemed to have set up a revolving door. This provided many scoring opportunities as both teams had to play shorthanded on the track, half the time with the jammer getting to skate unopposed. 

After a grueling 2 periods of hard-hitting play, Bleeding Heartland came out on top with a final score of 76-220. Despite losing the bout, DCRG had smiles on their faces as they made their final lap around the track getting high fives from their loyal fans. The MVP's of the game were Lil Rage of Sunshine (DCRG) and Bobbi McGuillotine (BHRG) for jamming while it was Celia Graves (DCRG) and Shock N' Roll (BHRG) for blocking.