Stockton’s Port City Roller Girls hosted the Santa Cruz Derby Girls at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds in the heart of Central California’s agricultural corridor on Saturday, August 15th. The fairground exhibition hall, with its polished concrete floor, welcomed local Stockton fans, numerous traveling Santa Cruz die-hards, and supporters from other area leagues, including Sacred (represented by the bout’s head ref, Nikki Nightmare) and B.A.D.G.
Within the first few jams, Port City took a points lead despite Santa Cruz getting lead jammer more than half of the time off the line. Heavy hitting by Port City’s Evil Angel and a jammer-turned-back-of-pack shark strategy by Stockton kept the numbers in their favor. A crowd (and eyebrow)-raising elbow call on Santa Cruz jammer Candie Hooligan in the 11th jam seemed to light a fire in the Santa Cruz’ Boardwalk Bombshell bench, and another head-scratching call sending SCDG jammer Lulu Lockjaw to the box in the last jam of the first half led to an official time out held by the referee crew, comprised of both home and visiting refs, and discussion of both score tabulating and calls. Jamn Jewl and 2-Quik handled the bulk of Port City’s jamming, to good effect. Santa Cruz’ strong skating and effective individual players stood out, however Port City’s blocking kept the score at the end of the first half in their favor by more than a dozen points.
The second period showed improved officiating and a renewed fire in the eyes of the Santa Cruz skaters. Shamrock N. Roller’s pivoting and Foxee Firestorm’s bottomless booty-blocking combined with more excellent jam work by Sheila Princess of Power and Kicken Red Vixen tightened up the score with each jam. Stockton’s Hott Sake, BeBe Brewski and Boppin continued to be viable threats to jammers and blockers alike. Also continuing were heavy penalties, most being called, many going unnoticed by officials, as well as scoring discrepancies on both sides of the board. Tempers flared, some more than others, with the Port City head coach being ejected from the game for gross insubordination with approximately 2 seconds left on the clock.
At the final whistle the skaters showed the somewhat agitated crowd the meaning of sportsmanship and congratulated each other for a game well played, posed for photos and left it on the floor.
The final score with Port City over Santa Cruz Derby Girls 87-86 reflects skilled skating on behalf of both teams. Congratulations to all of the ladies giving their all out there.