The recap from this weekend’s bout between H.A.R.D. and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Roller Radicals. Once again, I must say what a great group of skaters the Radicals are. I have fallen in love with their spunk and welcoming energy over the last eight months. Good work to both teams!
Trial by Fire
Writing recaps for my own league is extremely difficult for me, so I think I’m going to skip the “classic” recap that so many other bloggers embrace with such an indelible passion, so I apologize if this doesn’t read like a normal recap.
On March 13, the Charlottesville Derby Dames came up to Enola to take on H.A.R.D.’s Fallout Femmes. For those of you who get confused on this issue, Harrisburg Area Roller Derby is a total league, the teams that make up the league are the Nuclear Knockouts and the Fallout Femmes. The Knockouts play on the national stage in Women’s Flat Track Derby Association sanctioned bouts. The Femmes are the secondary team that plays by WFTDA rules, but the games are not sanctioned, and the team is unranked. (We often call the Femmes the “trainer” team, or the JV variety of teams)
Just because this team is unranked and plays other unranked teams, it does not mean that the games are any less fun to watch, or that the quality of skaters is any less. Unranked games are sometimes even more hard-hitting than the sanctioned chess matches that have been taking place between high ranked squads.
Both teams played a very good game. As an outsider, you could definitely see inexperience on both benches, however. H.A.R.D. debuted Simone Ta Devour, Lilli Vanilli, Eden Venom, Fruit Trollup, and Atomic Cupcake. This was also a big game for Lizzy Stardust, Luna C Loveless, CYA Maeker, Stella Stitch’er, Radioactive Barbie, and Nina Nina Boom Boom, as it was their first time seeing full rotation game play. There are only 14 spots on a roster. This means, of all the spots, only three girls on the Femmes on March 13 had played together for more than two bouts in their career. This selection of 14 individuals had only gotten to play together as a specifically defined unit for two weeks prior to the bout! If that isn’t a green team, I don’t know what is.
Charlottesville had some very fresh players as well. Demo Plan, PR PunisHer, and Jane SkEyre were all debuting in Enola, and MatilDa Molish was back on the track for the first time in over a year, having just recovered from a shoulder injury. This team definitely came with the intent of playing their heart out and leaving it ALL on the floor.
Overall, the first half, Charlottesville dominated. The Femmes lacked pack cohesion and awareness of each other and of the opposing team. When the Femmes were able to get their jammer through the pack first to earn lead jammer, quite often, they also allowed the Dames’ jammer to get through right on her tail. Power jams from B-One Bomber, and quick blocking by players like Puerto Rican Punisher, helped the Dames to an early lead. However, Charlottesville did suffer from a lack of awareness several times throughout the bout as well.
In the second half, power jams by Nina Nina Boom Boom and Radioactive Barbie, along with strong blocking in the back of the pack by Bamm Bamm Brewski, helped to lessen the deficit. The Femmes looked like a much different team in the second half, building more powerful walls and being better communicators. In the end, however, Charlottesville played a more cohesive game, and had some walls that the Femmes just couldn’t seem to break.
Despite the score being very separate in the end, the game and intensity would have suggested that the score should have been much closer. Neither the Femmes nor the Dames ever stopped pushing as hard as possible. The Femmes knew they could come back if they didn’t give up, and the Dames knew they couldn’t get complacent or they would potentially give up their lead.
It was extremely difficult to watch this game. This was the first game that H.A.R.D. has played where I sat from the sideline, and not because of injury (I missed the Femmes v. Jersey Shore game last season from a small knee issue). It is so difficult to watch your team play and be told that you have to sit on the sidelines, unable to get into the mix.
Now that I’ve spent a lot of time watching derby and getting into many jams against different teams, I see a little bit more than I used to. I see the girls who over-commit on their hits consistently and end up falling because of it. I see the girls who drop their toe stops when making a hit (which is asking for a broken leg). I see when one player tries to do it all herself, or tries to take on a role that she just isn’t quite ready for, all by herself. However, I also see when the spark of recognition happens. I see when two girls who never work together in practice sandwich an opposing player at the right moment. I see when a first timer, who was afraid to hit anyone two months ago, is able to send an opposing player FLYING into the infield right off the line (it was a nice hit, Cupcake, I have it on film).
Watching from the sideline frustrated me for the first half, when the girls were just trying to wrap their heads around working with teammates who they do not partner with on a regular basis, or were put into positions they do not usually play. For all the frustration in the first half, there was so much joy in the SECOND half, when they had figured out themselves and the other team. Barbie had a heck of a game. Lizzy Stardust sent a few girls flying. Nina was jamming and blocking like she had been there for years. Stella was chasing people down. Gunn and Blocksley formed a solid foundation that the other girls could work from, around, and with.
Nina had a 20 point power jam in the second half that was helped along by DonnaRae Gunn coordinating and instructing her fellow blockers into walls and a defensive strategy that allowed Nina to simply skate left very quickly and score points; needing to exert very little effort to avoid the opposing team. It was awesome to see the team mesh in these ways.
I am sure that Charlottesville had similar revelations. You cannot play a game like that with new skaters and not have some “Ah Ha!” moments. It really was a great game to watch. Even if I was rooting for the team that lost 197 - 114.
There are many girls from this squad that have the potential to be full time Knockouts. With the Nuclear Knockouts and Fallout Femmes having seven bouts by the end of June, everyone is going to be training hard to fill those 14 roster spots. H.A.R.D. is focusing on bringing their game to a new level and the intensity of the upcoming schedule proves it.
The Lehigh Valley Roller Girls are first against the Knockouts on April 3; Then the Femmes travel to take on the Dutchland Blitz in Lancaster on April 16. The following day, the Knockouts go up against Suburbia Roller Girls from White Plains, NY (ranked #14 in the East) who defeated them last year at the East Coast Extravaganza (ECE). May 1st, the Knockouts welcome #8 in the East, Providence Roller Derby, into their house. Then on Saturday, May 27, the Knockouts will battle it out with #8 in the South, the Houston Hard Knocks, in Houston, TX. Then the last weekend in June the Knockouts get to go back to Philadelphia for ECE from some redemption in two sanctioned games; one against the Hudson Valley Horrors, and the second against Tri-City.
In between, the League will be seeking out scrimmages from a variety of leagues at a variety of levels. How else can you really learn, without being thrown into the mix with players of all levels? (Even if you do feel like it’s a trial by fire.)
