Photo by John Connelly
Prior to the start of the Bombshells’ bout against the Oakland Outlaws, this reporter and a fan were discussing the team’s prospects in light of a frustrating loss in the home opener.
“It’s girls rolling around in circles,” remarked the fan. “They hit each other and sometimes fall down. I’m easy to please.”
It was logic so diamond-like in its clarity and hardness that it could send a less intrepid derby chronicler into an existential panic, making him miss all the inherent drama that comes with a talented team struggling for redemption in front a frothy home crowd, the loyalty of which no self-respecting team would want to test with a losing streak. Add to that the unpredictability in a still-young sport in which a few new skaters can transform a team from punching bag to Mike Tyson in the span of an off-season, and suddenly, this bout against Oakland did seem to have some real stakes.
Santa Cruz’s first minute went as well as could be hoped for, with lead-off jammer Candy Hooligan providing a 4-0 head start, but then…malaise. Jams 2 through 8, eating up 10 minutes, saw the Bombshells unable to make lead jammer or even break out of single-digits. That hurdle was finally cleared in the 9th Jam by Foxee Firestorm, looking strong in a rare turn with the starred helmet, but it took a vintage Candy jam to start the fire burning. With four grand-slams in half as many minutes, Santa Cruz burst out to a 32-21 lead at the one-quarter mark. Credit must also go a defensive unit that looked vastly sharper than it did just two months ago. The start of their evening was no flashier than that of the jammers, but it was staunch and cohesive when it needed to be, their thickets of interlaced arms keeping Oakland’s early lead to no more than 12 and allowing a team that suddenly found its scoring mojo to spend its time building a lead rather than chasing one. Better still, once the point drought ended, so did the polite blocking, and before long, a bout which had heretofore featured a dreadful surplus of upright skaters started racking up as many fallen women as are found in the entire Edith Wharton oeuvre. Santa Cruz’s bruised and bruising brood sailed into halftime up double over Oakland, 70-35.
After the Groms’ mid-bout mini-bout, the Bombshells retook the hardwood looking happier and looser than they have all season. A gigantic lead will do that for you, but it can also make you complacent, and that looked to be the case as a 35-point lead eroded to 32, then 28 after a handful of second-half jams, but then Heather Headlocklear, shut out all night, bagged the night’s second-best jam, a glorious 15-pointer that signaled that the rout was truly on. All the way to the final buzzer, however, the hitting stayed fierce and fun. Maiden Hades scored one of the finest knockdowns, and even Candy diversified her derby portfolio by plowing over Oakland’s Fatal Dreidel when both were barely off the jammer line. The award for Hit of the Night, however, goes to Liv N. Letdie, who splashed Oakland’s Lethally Blonde to the floor with a wicked high hit as time was winding down. Was it legal? That’s not for us to decide. It is, however, for the referees to decide, and they went with no. True, you can’t spell “illegal but entertaining take-down” without “entertaining take-down,” but the Bombshells would have liked to spend less time in the box, as evidenced by Foxee Firestorm in Jam 10 of the second half. Just as she was expecting the officials to name her lead jammer, they instead called her out, and lip-readers, even deterred by Foxee’s ample mouthguard, were thus able to gauge her mood.
Still, these were small thorns in an otherwise happy side. As the game came to a 110-73 final, Candy and Brawley Parton hugged ecstatically, then tripped over themselves, and fell to the floor laughing. Head Coach Shamrock N. Roller seemed to ask a nearby cameraman if he had caught that. In the end, the bout really had been about girls falling down.
Write-up by Brian James
Santa Cruz Derby Girls - THE Rollergirls of Santa Cruz
