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May 10, 2008: Boston B-Party 42, Connecticut 87; and Boston Massacre 85, Cincinnati 44

Type :Bout Recaps
Connecticut v. B Party; Massacre v. Black Sheep
Bout Recaps by Mr. Hits

On May 10th, the Boston Derby Dames hosted two out-of-town squads for a double scoop of Saturday night derby fever at the luxurious Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, Massachusetts. The All-Star Boston Massacre look to extend their unbeaten 2008-2009 season against the Cincinnati Black Sheep while Boston’s JV squad, the B Party, hoped to bag a win in their public debut against the Connecticut Rollergirls. Both bouts featured high-speed skating and balls-out action, and if you came for the carnage, yours was money well spent. When the dust settled, the hometown favorites had scored an even split: The Massacre sheered the Sheep 87-42, but Connecticut crashed the B-Party 85-44.

Boston B-Party vs Connecticut Rollergirls

While late-arriving fans trickled to their seats, action got started in the undercard with the B Party versus Connecticut. In the opening jam, B Party co-captain and MVP Mrs. Dash cooked up a tasty first course, somehow outscoring Connecticut’s Black Cherry 4-2 in spite of Cherry’s status as lead jammer. Alas, Dash’s success was not a harbinger of things to come, and that two-point differential would be the B Party’s only lead of the bout. Connecticut bounced back instantly and shut Boston out for the next six jams, getting to the lead five times and earning themselves a 22-4 edge. In an impressively balanced attack, Connecticut skated seven different jammers in the first seven jams, each as effective as the last as they sliced through the B Party pack.

With a blowout looming, Boston managers wisely called a timeout to calm their team and adjust tactics. Coming out of that timeout, the B Party finally caught a break. For jams eight through ten, Connecticut skaters, including their jammer twice, took turns checking in to an overcrowded penalty box as the B Party rallied back with an 11-1 run that brought the score to 22-15. Despite Boston closing the gap, Connecticut must have been satisfied with their damage control. Twice, Boston jammers were positioned for huge scores, but timely hits, particularly one by Miz ConSepJen in the eighth jam, saved Connecticut at least half a dozen points. By the 11th jam, Connecticut had solved its penalty woes and were back at full strength, and they began to skate like a team that had something to prove. In a performance appropriately described as OMFG, it was Connecticut Roller Girls gone wild for the final fifteen minutes of the first half. They snatched lead jammer in each of the final ten jams and shut out Boston in all but two of those jams. Time and again, they trapped Boston jammers in the pack while their jammers slashed through the B Party’s vulnerable inside lines. In the end, it was a 36-4 explosion that sent Connecticut to the locker room with a 58-19 lead.

Reflecting on the first thirty minutes, it’s clear that the B Party is a stronger squad than their performance indicated. Though slightly undersized when compared to Connecticut, Boston possesses an overall talent level that at least approximates their skater sisters. But this half wasn’t about talent, it was about teamwork, and the B Party’s inexperience playing with one another led to their unraveling. The contrast in packs was striking. While Connecticut moved as an organic whole, with each skater weaving and replacing in sync with the rest, the B Party skaters mostly pursued targets individually. This lack of coordination caused an over-commitment to outside lines (as multiple blockers chased opposing jammers) and under-commitment to the more important inside lines. It didn’t take long for Connecticut jammers to realize that they could use Boston’s aggressive play against them, and they simply lured blockers outside and then cut inside for easy passes. Even where Boston blockers were making solid booty-blocking contact, jammers were never trapped on multiple sides, and with all the vacant real estate to work with, they quickly found a way to sneak by.

Boston also had significant problems with offensive blocking. Save for a few exceptions, nearly everyone was blocking defensively, which enabled Connecticut to create a three-abreast wall of blockers at the front of the pack. Many times, Boston jammers beat their opponents to the front, but were left alone to navigate a hostile mob on the back end of their pass. B Party captain Jennasaurus Wrecks, who was in excellent form all night, tried to lead by example and often mixed it up in front, but no skater is an island and her solo efforts weren’t quite enough to neutralize Connecticut’s advantage.

Who knows what was said in the locker room during the fifteen-minute intermission, but whatever it was, it worked. The B Party turned a 180 in the second half. Some communication and coordination problems persisted, but they started to play like a team, not a collection of individuals. And they reaped the rewards right away. Full Metal Jacquebroke Boston’s lead jammer drought within 30 seconds. Connecticut successfully executed roller derby’s sneakiest move, passing the star, but Jacque burst through the pack first and completed a 4-1 jam to inject her team with new life. Connecticut again found themselves in penalty trouble, and the B Party chipped away at the lead for the first half of the second period. Led by fearless blocking performances from Britknee Breakerand Maude Forbid, whose whoop-ass-to-size ratios defy all reason, the B Party secured lead jammer in six of the first nine jams and outscored Connecticut 14-10. Although the B Party wasn’t taking large bites out of the lead, they controlled the rhythm of the bout and skated with composure, and for a developing team, that process is much more important than any numerical results.

As they did in the first period, Connecticut turned it up at the halfway point. Shutting out Boston for three straight jams, they went on a 9-0 rush that included a grand slam by their hard-hitting captain Chelsea Grin. Not to be outdone, the B Party’s Mrs. Dash answered with eight points and a grand slam in the 13th jam. After battling injuries for months, Dash is rounding in to form nicely and should be a force in the regular season finals; excellent news for her home team, the Cosmonaughties, who will need all the firepower they can muster against the defending champion Wicked Pissahs on June 14. After Dash’s slam, the teams traded blows for the last several jams, with Connecticut getting slightly the best of it. Their MVP, Nelly Knuckles, capped a killer all-around performance with a 5-0 grand slam jam in the 17th; Knuckles impressed all night with her versatility (she played each of the five positions on the track) and flawless skating (she was never outscored by an opposing jammer). When the clock expired, Connecticut had scored themselves a comfortable 85-44 win.

Both teams should be pleased with their efforts in this bout. Connecticut because they dominated the first half and maximized their muscle and smarts to control their opponents. And the B Party because they constantly improved throughout the bout, got some much needed experience, and demonstrated that they can hold pace with a tough team (the second half score was only 27-25 in favor of Connecticut).

Boston Massacre vs. Cincinatti Rollergirls’ Black Sheep

Following a short intermission, skaters from the main event took center stage and fired up the Massacre versus Black Sheep match-up. For onlookers, the second verse was the same as the first. Like Connecticut in the opener, Boston put the screws to their opponents right out of the gate and had Cincinnati on its heels. In the very first jam, Massacre’s Claire D. Way followed a lead-blocking Shellby Shattered through most of the pack and finished the pass with a whip from her doppelganger and co-MVP Maura Buse. After two clean scoring passes from Claire and a defensive lockdown by Massacre blockers, Boston had skated to an 8-0 lead. This trend continued for the next eight jams. Massacre blockers skated a gem, relentlessly replacing their front-line defense and refusing to yield the right of passage to Sheep jammers. Boston jammers skated equally well. Claire worked her signature rope-a-dope time and again, baiting opposing blockers to the outside and then leaping inside to force a whiff and fly right by. Derby pioneer Sarah Doom put an exclamation point on Boston’s rush in the eighth jam. Taking a joyride on the MBT&A, Doom got back-to-back-to-back whips from Quick Sandy, Harley Quinn, and Maura Buse to power her to a grand slam and 8-0 jam.

By the start of the 10th jam, Boston led 25-2, and Cincinnati had found themselves with lead jammer only once. Apparently tiring of Boston’s dominance, The Black Sheep’s MVP Sadistic Sadie, a brilliant skater who scored over seventy-five percent of her team’s points, stepped on the track and smoked a jam in an effort to rally her team. It’s a rare day when an opposing jammer slams Claire D. Way, but Sadie did just that and went off for nine points to Claire’s two. Sadie (like Boston’s Triple Deck-Her) has that fire to her play that’s so much fun to watch; she skates every jam like it could be her last. But Sadie’s spark didn’t take, and Boston got right back to business, posting three grand slams in the next two jams. And although Cincinnati finished strong over the last six jams (allowing Boston just a single scoring jam), they had trouble tallying points themselves and made minimal progress reeling in the Massacre. At halftime, Boston held a commanding thirty-two point lead of 51-19.

Naturally, Boston’s first half lead was partly the result of superior physical play – tighter lines, cleaner contact, better communication – but it’s important to recognize that they also won the mental battle. Perhaps the Massacre’s greatest strength is their superb pack control, and tonight they were at their best. Constantly throughout the first half, the rules-conscious Massacre would let their jammer through and then slam the brakes on the pack, forcing any remaining Sheep blockers to disengage the Massacre jammer or risk a major penalty for blocking twenty feet outside the pack. To Cincinnati’s credit, they chose the superior option and mostly avoided costly majors, but the lesser of two evils is an evil nonetheless, and the Massacre’s strategy paid off in spades.

After a kick-ass set by While Rome Burns, complete with a shout-out to the late great Wesley Willis, both teams got back to work in the second half. Sadie found the lead in the first jam and called it off for a 2-0 win, but the Massacre got those points back with interest within minutes. Despite excellent solo blocking by Cincinnati’s Panterrorize, Massacre jammers went 5-0 and 4-0 in the second and third jams. It was then that the bout turned sloppy. After skating super-clean up to this point, Boston got buried by penalties, including four uncharacteristic twenty foot majors and two majors for track cutting. For the last fourteen jams of the bout, Boston skated only one jam with a full complement of skaters. To compensate for their boxed skaters, Boston used their aforementioned pack control to boost the pace to ludicrous speed and challenge the jammers to a game of catch-us-if-you-can. Cincinnati’s Hannah Barbaric and Sadistic Sadie, with their formidable top-end speed, were up to the task and took turns mounting assaults on Boston’s defense. Sk8r Kinney, Cincinnati’s hardest-working and most reliable blocker, also joined the attack and worked her pivot stripe beautifully. But despite their best efforts, no meaningful progress was made to cut the lead.

Even playing short, Massacre blockers pressured Sheep jammers into making mistakes. Sadie spent parts of four jams in the penalty box, including three consecutive stints in jams nine, ten, and eleven. At the same time, Massacre jammers racked up points whenever they had an opening. Doom scored eight points in the sixth jam after Sadie was sent off, and Claire picked up four in the eighth and three in the tenth. With their defense mostly pitching shutouts, Boston weathered the storm of penalties nicely and had actually extended their lead to 78-31 at the start of the 14th jam. In the 14th, Hannah Barbaric put on a fine show and beat Maura Buse to lead jammer, no easy task, for a 3-2 jam. Sadie and Roseanne Scarr followed with 4-1 and 4-0 jams, respectively, but it was too little, too late for Cincinnati. Boston’s KrushPuppy added some insurance points in the last full jam, as she always seems to do, and the whistles blew shortly thereafter for a final score of 87-42.
With this victory, the Boston Massacre improves to 3-0 for their off-season bouting schedule and continues to roll on its competition. With due respect for the teams that Boston has hosted, the Massacre hasn’t really been challenged this year, so it’s difficult to gauge what kind of havoc they’re capable of wreaking on top teams. This team has high hopes for the 2008 WFTDA season, and only time will tell if they can parlay their recent success in to a much-coveted berth in the national tournament.

Next up for Boston roller derby is the long-awaited Season Two Championship. In just one month, the undefeated Wicked Pissahs will try to repeat as league champions against the Cosmonaughties. On paper, the Pissahs are the favorites, but every Cosmonaughtie is skating with great confidence right now and they’re poised to exact their revenge. Fans should expect something special from both teams on June 14th, making this bout an absolute can’t-miss.

The Massacre’s next battles will be hosting the Ohio Rollergirls on July 19, and Arizona Roller Derby’s Tent City Terrors on August 9. Ohio is coming off a rough season, with a travel team record of only 1-6, but a few of those losses were to fierce, top-ranked WFTDA leagues, so if they’ve been able to pick up pointers and learn from their mistakes, the Massacre should be in for a wild ride. Arizona is the most closely ranked team that the Massacre has hosted recently, posting 19th place nationally to the Massacre’s 16th, although that ranking belies their significantly longer experience as one of flat-track derby’s first leagues. The Tent City Terrors have placed high at every tournament they’ve been part of, and their west coast style is sure to mix it up for the Massacre and test their mettle in a way they’ve not been accustomed to.


Team stats (B Party v. Connecticut)
Boston B Party
Lead jammer in 12 of 39 jams
Highest scoring jammer (single jam): Mrs. Dash, 8 points in period 2, jam 13
Highest scoring jammer (overall): Mrs. Dash, 18 points
Most penalties: Coco A Gogo, 7 minors and 1 major; Mrs. Dash, 8 minors
MVP: Mrs. Dash #360

Connecticut Roller Girls
Lead jammer in 26 of 39 jams
Highest scoring jammer (single jam): Chelsea Grin, Nelly Knuckles and Black Cherry, 5 points
Highest scoring jammer (overall): Nelly Knuckles, 17 points
Most penalties: Miz ConSepJen, 10 minors and 1 major
MVP: Nelly Knuckles #2KO


Team stats (Massacre v. Black Sheep)
Boston Massacre
Lead jammer in 23 of 36 jams
Highest scoring jammer (single jam): Sugar Hits, 10 points in period 1, jam 12
Highest scoring jammer (overall): Krushpuppy, 22 points
Most penalties: Shellby Shattered, 7 minors and 2 majors
MVP: Claire D. Way #1984 and Maura Buse #34B

Cincinnati Black Sheep
Lead jammer in 11 of 36 jams
Highest scoring jammer (single jam): Sadistic Sadie, 9 points in period 1, jam 10
Highest scoring jammer (overall): Sadistic Sadie, 31 points
Most penalties: Sadistic Sadie, 6 minors and 1 major
MVP: Sadistic Sadie #76
 

 
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