by Justice Feelgoo... - February 10, 2009 - 2:37am
PHILADELPHIA,
PA -- The all-star team from River City, Poe's Punishers, jumped out to
a quick surprising lead over Philly's local team Broad Street Butchers,
but the Butchers took control of the game from the Richmond visitors
about halfway through the first half and never gave it back, rolling to
a win 138-75.
While both teams seemed to fight with some endurance troubles that
left them unable to capitalize on opportunities, especially in the
second half, it was the Butchers playing a more cohesive defense that
excelled at taking advantage of power play situations, which would make
the difference in the end.
River City's early lead was actually built on jammer penalties for
the Butchers, as the Butchers lost jammer Shenita Stretcher on the
opening jam and jammer Sunshine Skate to the penalty box on the third
jam. That opened the door for four straight lead jams for River City,
who consistently relied on a three jammer rotation of Shake and Baker,
Paris Kills and Raven Darkhold that brought them to a 20-3 lead 7
minutes into the bout.
But the Butchers started getting back on the board once they were
able to keep their jammers on the track. Jam 9, between Shenita
Stretcher for the Butchers and Shake and Baker for RCR, would be a
turning point. With the score 22-9 for River City, Shenita took lead
jammer and a quick 4 points and decided to gamble in going for more
while Shake and Baker remained stuck in pack. It paid off when SNB took
a fall in her first scoring pass, allowing for a 8-2 Butchers win.
River City had an especially unfortunate break on the following jam,
where RCR's Raven Darkhold had lead jammer and tried to call off the in
the middle of her scoring pass after tumbling -- but her jam ref,
looking the other way to report a penalty, didn't see her making the
signal for a few critical seconds, allowing Butchers jammer Antidote to
get into the pack and turn what would have been a 2-0 loss into a 3-2
win while Darkhold tried to get the jam called.
Two jams later, it would fall apart for River City, as RCR jammer
Shake and Baker went to the box early and was joined by blocker
Terminal Velocity. The Butchers had one of their speediest jammers on
the line in veteran all-star Persephone, and she got a lot of help from
the Butchers blockers, who very effectively picked off and isolated
RCR's Mortician Murphy and slowed the pack to a crawl that created a
huge 20-0 Butchers win and put them in front with authority, 45-30,
with about 11:20 left to play in the first half.
A
rattled River City was not able to turn the bout back around, suffering
from an inability to break the Butchers' control of the front of the
pack and losing their jammers too often to apparently avoidable track
cuts. The Butchers' lead grew to 61-38 by the end of the first half,
and the first three jams of the second made an RCR comeback very
unlikely, as jammer Paris Kills took back-to-back cutting track majors
in the second and third jams of the half that led to a 10-0 jam (for
Antidote) and a 7-2 jam (for Elle Viento.)
The score there was 82-42, and the 6th jam of the half was the true
nail in the coffin, yet again on a major penalty on an RCR jammer, this
time Raven Darkhold. All-star Shenita Stretcher was the one making RCR
pay this time, grand slamming 3 times for a 15-0 win that put the
Butchers over the century mark, 101-49.
When River City got their own power jams, they were not able to
break up the Butchers' situational defense. Two jams after the 15-0,
they had an opportunity when Butchers' jammer Sunshine Skate went to
the box early in her scoring pass, but heads-up defense by the
Butchers' Nina Knockout, Persephone, Cannon and Antidote locked down
tiring River City jammer Paris Kills and River City couldn't find a way
to spring her, leading to Paris being stuck on her opening pass for the
full 2 minutes in a demoralizing jam that eventually went 3-0 for the
Butchers and caused a bit of frustration to boil over on the River City
bench.
While second-half bright points were few for River City, there was
an impressive sequence near the end of the bout, where River City's
apparently inexhaustible Shake and Baker jammed three times in a row
and took two wins and a tie -- 4-1 over Antidote, 8-3 over Elle Viento,
and 0-0 against Nina Knockout. Still, though, by the time of those
jams, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, and the Butchers won the
first bout in the 23rd Street Armory, 136-75.
The Broad St. Butchers have their first local-teams bout when they
take on the still undefeated three-time champion Philthy Britches on
Saturday, March 7th. River City's all-stars are next in action on March
22 as they host the B team from Carolina, the Bootleggers.
Additional reporting: The StatisfierPhotos: Akira Takahashi