2016 Championships D1 Game 4: Texas vs Rat City

Texas Rollergirls (#2 Montreal) vs. Rat City Rollergirls (#3 Vancouver)

The final game of Friday saw perennial Champs team, the Texas Rollergirls from Austin, Texas, USA, face off against the Rat City Rollergirls from Seattle, Washington, USA, who after a brief absence from Championships in 2014, lost in the first round in 2015. The Texas Rollergirls have never lost in the first round at Championships and tonight would be no different. With a commanding performance from start to finish and in every aspect of the game, Texas took the game 238-50 and will face another West Coast team, Rose City Rollers from Portland, OR, USA tomorrow.

Rat City would take first blood and their only lead of the game in the first jam. Carmen Getsome scored two points for the Seattle team before calling off the jam. The next jam saw Texas take the lead and earn the first jammer penalty with Bloody Mary putting up 9 points and going to the box for a track cut. Masterful defense from the Texecutioners kept Luna Negra to only 5 points on the power jam. Both teams played brutal defense in the next jam with over a minute before Olivia Shootin’ John earned lead for Texas. With just under five minutes gone, the score read 18-7 in favor of Texas. Freight Train and Luna Negra traded 2-0 jams for Texas and Rat City, respectively, before Bloody Mary outlasted the defense of Cassie Beck and H. Botts to put up the first two-digit scoring jam 15-0. With that, the floodgates opened and with just over 15 minutes played, Texas had increased their lead to 65-9. Luna Negra was definitely a bright spot for the Rat City jammer rotation, picking up 18 of the 20 points scored by Rat City in the first half and earning lead 5 of her 7 times with the star. The Rat City defense also looked great, but Texas looked better with blockers Jackie Daniels and Smarty Pants absorbing any offense thrown at them and StoneHer and Peacewar containing Rat City jammers while maneuvering through the pack. The first half ended with Texas in the lead 116-20.

The second half saw both teams maintain their jammer rotations, but more Rat City jammers saw success with Luna Negra and Scratcher in the Eye scoring 4 points apiece in the first three minutes. Jams ran shorter with single scoring passes being more common than long jams and the score gap consistently hovering around 100 points. With just over 15 minutes to go, two things changed: Texas committed to more offensive blocking, often sending Peacewar, Smarty Pants, or Trauma in to break up the Rat City triangle defense; and Rat City started jamming Eva Derci as a relief jammer. The score gap again increased before finally finishing with the biggest score difference of the day at 238-50 in the Texecutioners’ favor.

Texas Rollergirls face the Rose City Rollers (Columbia #1) from Portland, OR, USA at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow.

FINAL SCORE

Texas Rollergirls (#6) 238
Rat City Rollergirls (#11) 50