2017 D1 Playoffs Dallas Game 8: Arch Rival vs. Queen City

Arch Rival Roller Derby (#3) vs. Queen City Roller Girls (#6)

Arch Rival Roller Derby of St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. (Seed #3, WFTDA #8) looked to secure a spot in the semifinals and a trip to the 2017 International WFTDA Championships Philadelphia with a win at their first game of the 2017 International WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs Dallas, but were facing an ascendant Queen City Roller Girls of Buffalo, New York, U.S. (Seed #6, WFTDA #18) that took a solid win over Houston Roller Derby in Friday’s play. Leaning on their experienced, agile jammers and solid blocking core, Arch Rival withstood a determined effort from Queen City to take away a commanding win, 339–123.

Arch Rival took the first three lead jam designations of the game, but Queen City was able to limit the damage and hold them to 12 points before getting a lead jam call of their own. Queen City’s GO!, who joined the Furies this season as a transfer from Roc City in Rochester, New York, took lead and elected to let the jam go long, picking up seven points while Arch Rival’s jammer, Harmony Killerbruise, took eight. Two jams later, Queen City’s LiBRAWLian picked up another lead status and also chose to let the jam run long. The gamble cost Queen City, as Brawl took a penalty and two Queen City blockers followed to the box, allowing Arch Rival’s Swanson to rack up 27 points to Queen City’s 8.

As the period progressed, Queen City continued to run jams long when they got lead jammer status, likely with the goal of maintaining their WFTDA ranking while playing a higher-seeded team. This led to a number of high-scoring jams for both teams and Arch Rival’s accomplished jammer rotation put up some big numbers. Bricktator achieved a perfect 100 percent lead jammer average on nine jams en route to 76 points and an even more impressive stat — zero points scored against. Harmony Killerbruise was the high scorer for Arch Rival, with 88 points and five out of seven lead jams. Arch Rival also got point-scoring contributions from Bolt Action, Swanson, and Psychokid D. Freakout. For Queen City, LiBRAWLian lead the charge with 68 points and seven of 15 lead jammer status, while GO! and Crazy Squirrel chipped in with 32 and 23 points respectively.

Though Queen City chose early on to run jams long and allow Arch Rival to score along with them, by halftime they had put a very respectable 90 points on the board, and with Arch Rival at 174, the game was not entirely out of reach. However, in the second-half Arch Rival was a much tighter team in all aspects. Perhaps needing the first half to shake the dust off or get used to the floor, they buckled down in the second and limited Queen City to just 33 additional points in that frame while scoring 165 more of their own.

Arch Rival saw strong blocking performances from K. Woodward and Cloak N’Drag-her, who were able to limit the damage from Queen City by frequently teaming up to force jammers off the track. Shear-Ra Powers was a jammer’s best friend, opening holes and making offensive magic to allow Arch Rival to put points on the board. For Queen City, returning blocker KonichiWOW played powerful, physical defense to slow Arch Rival’s speedy jammers and Bricks Hit-house frequently sprung out to erase the opposing jammer’s hopes of sneaking through on an outside line.

With a final score of 339–123, Arch Rival took the win and will move on to face the Texas Rollergirls (Seed #2, WFTDA #6) of Austin, Texas, U.S. on Saturday at 8 p.m., Central Daylight Time. Queen City’s next opponent will be Wasatch Roller Derby (Seed #12, WFTDA #40) on Sunday at 12 pm CDT.

FINAL SCORE

Arch Rival Roller Derby (Seed #3, WFTDA #8) 339
Queen City Roller Girls (Seed #6, WFTDA #18) 123

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