Dixie Derby Girls News

Friday, June 24, 2011

Skate Wars Return: The Fempire Strikes Back!

Well, I'm slacking again on updates, FOR SHAME!

This bout was our annual Skate Wars saga bout, with this year's episode being The Fempire Strikes Back! The inner geek in me loves this bout... we get the added excitement of the Storm Troopers and Darth Vader breathing down our necks that the fans (and us) just eat up.

Our B-team was taking on the Tragic City Rollers B-team from Birmingham, AL while the All-Star team faced the Louisville, KY Derby City Rollergirls.

The B-team did a fantastic job, and just fell short after some tough jammer-in-the-box plays. Man, they were really making some great improvements! Excited that they are coming into their own now!

I had the honor of being voted our co-captain for the second game in a row, which means I got the fun task of figuring out a game plan for our line-ups. Talk about a bajillionty scenarios! What to do if Skater X gets injured, if Skater Y is in penalty trouble, if Skater Z has to cover for X, and who is going to JAM?!? Its a complicated chore and in my OCD about readiness, I think we came up with a million What-IF lineups.

Not that it means much in the throes of bout-dom. That chaos is impossible to predict, and even the best laid plans are often little consolation. Thank God for level-headed crews!

So for this bout, we gained back some of our veteran blockers that had been missing, and it was decided that I would concentrate on jamming this game, instead of tiring myself out by blocking too.

I was in a 3 jammerish rotation of sorts, which gave me time to really watch what was happening on the track. The first half was really crappy for me. Derby City started walling-up in the back and would be 4 across right in the middle of the first turn. That gave me zero room to A) gain speed, and B) avoid the giant wall of 'gina without taking some massive stop-dead-in-your-tracks hits. For most of the first half, I'd have to fight my way through slowly. I missed getting lead 3 times, and would have to call off the jam early if I got it to keep DCRG from scoring. I managed about 13 points in the first half, figuring out by about the last jam of the period that the wall wasn't a strong as it appeared and coming through the middle was pretty easy after a quick little juke to the outside.

With that little gem of information, the second half was all a different story for me. The blockers were doing great at breaking that initial wall up, and being able to go in an just grab those quick 3 and 4 to zero jams were slowly adding up. Unfortunately, I was the only DDG jammer to score in the second half, and they just didn't add up enough for the win. We ended up losing, 53-104. It gets frustrating, we know we are a good team, but just can't pull it out on game day.

Here's a little highlight reel from Rocktt Xtra:



After seeing that, I know of a few things I want to "tweek" myself in my game.

Thanks to all the great fans that came out to support us! We really appreciate all of you!

PERSONAL GAME STATS:
  • Skated in 13 out of 43 jams (30.23% of the game), all as a jammer.
  • Of the 13 jams, declared lead jammer 10 times (76.92%)
  • Scored a total of 31 points in the game, an average of 2.38 points per jam
  • Plus/Minus was +9
  • Highest scoring jammer of bout
  • Highest +/- of bout, the only jammer for DDG in positive
  • Highest lead percentage
  • Only DDG jammer to score in the second period
  • Only 1 minor back-block in the bout.
Up Next: An away bout vs Little City in Johnson City, TN, then its Greased Lightning time for Summer Fights on July
 
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