#3 Carolina Upsets #7 Windy City Rollers 76-60

A very tough Carolina Rollergirls team defense held down an explosive Windy City Rollers offense Sunday evening in Philadelphia as the team from Raleigh picked up a 76-60 victory.

In the East Coast Derby Extravaganza bout, the seventh-ranked Windy City Rollers started off strong, establishing an 18-6 lead in the sixth jam. Third-ranked Carolina would shut out Windy City the next eight jams, and come out of that defensive string with a 20-18 lead after the fourteenth jam. Windy City would come out with a four-point jam by Kola Loka and take a 22-18 lead. But Carolina would rally outscoring the squad from Chicago 8-2 in the last four jams of the half, and take a 31-24 lead.

If Windy City thought they saw a tough Carolina defense in the first half, the team from Raleigh was about to prove what real defense was. The team in red and black would shut out the explosive Windy City squad 12 of 17 jams. In fact, Carolina would be satisfied to have its jammer get into the pack, and cut off the jam with just a point, while shutting the Rollers out since CRG had a lead. And while this generally worked, Windy City would explode with a ten-point jam by Athena DeCrime in the fourth jam of the half to narrow the score down to 37-34.

Carolina would shut out the squad from Chicago for the next seven jams and expand the lead back out to 61-34 including a 13-point jam by Princess America. That was followed by a one-point jam by Windy City, and then a big 15-point jam by Eva Dead of Windy City that narrowed the score back down to 65-50. But there wasn't much time left.

Roxy Rockett of Carolina would make sure that Windy City wouldn't get back in the game in her own inimitable style. She would get lead jammer status by doing a hard cut from the outside in front of the last Windy City blocker, and would repeat the outside to inside cut that sealed off the last blocker on her hips for first pack pass. She would pull off a second pack pass, a second grand slam and pull a 10-0 jam to help put the game away. Kola Loka would follow up with a last jam run of 10 points, but it was not enough as the clock would run down to the point of not being enough time to run another jam. The final score was set on the clock at 76-60 and the Carolina Rollergirls had beaten another top ten WFTDA-ranked team.

Top scorers for Carolina included Roxy Rockett with 30 points, Billy the Kid with 21 points, and Princess America with 13 points. Top blockers included Kitty Crowbar, Trudy Destruction, and DVS. All individual scoring stats are unofficial.

Top scorers for Windy City were Eva Dead with 30 points, Kola Loka with 19 points, and Athena DeCrime with 10 points.

Phil Arnold