We won our bout on Saturday! It was so fun and amazing - the team worked so well together. We were pushed to do so because we knew that
Nickel City would be a
very big challenge.
After the first few jams I knew the bout was not going to be a blow out. I saw so much impressive derby from both sides, but especially the Hellions!
All photos below by
Andy Kainz unless otherwise noted!
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| Shockratease and Deadlie Mercury working together to stop the jammer. |
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| Pork Slap sends a jammer flying. |
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| Epic Kate-tastrophe jamming against one of KCNO's best jammers, and team captain, Addy Rawl. |
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| Hanna Solo using the Force. |
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| I think I actually landed this hit. Wooo. Photo by Pete Rodriguez. |
For this bout we also introduced to brand new skaters:
Valerie Valkyrie and
Disharmony! Both girls have previously written guests posts (Val
1 |
2 and
Disharmony). Anyway, these two have been KICKING ASS at practice so I knew they were ready. Disharmony is always where I need her to be when I'm jamming - up in the front clearing me a path! She's got great endurance and always gives 100% on the track. She rules.
Valerie is amazing at holding the line and not afraid of giving a hit. In the two pictures on the left you can see that we were
working together in one jam. The KCNO jammer managed to get by me, but within seconds Valerie was able to race ahead to booty block her and slow her down, allowing Mathundra Storm and myself to catch up and form a strong three person wall. YEAH!!
I am SO PROUD of these two girls. And we have a couple more coming up in the ranks so expect to "meet" a couple more new Hellions soon!
What I really think pulled this game together for our team was our
constant team work and remembering the drills we had worked on in the past month or so. I've never seen us work so tight together. We were constantly in the front of the pack holding walls and recycling when necessary.
NCKO had a few fast jammers which we had to adapt too. In the first period they were up 78 HoT - 90 NCKO. The game wasn't quite this close for the whole period however... Pork Slap scored 20 points in the last jam of the period to lessen their dominating lead. That's when we really started gaining momentum.
In the second period KNCO caught on to our walls and were able to fight fire with fire. But we just kept up what we were doing and we caught up and took the lead with only a couple minutes left in the game. It was very close at the end, the last few jams really decided it. In the end,
the Hellions won the bout 130 - 121.
NNKO were pretty amazing. I'm so glad they came out and was honored to play them. We may have won the bout, but they won the after party. I got to talk to a few afterwards, including Beauty School Knockout, who is totally freaking sweet and nice. After parties are always crazy socially overwhelming for me, but I'm glad I got to talk to a few of their girls.
Thanks again Nickel City Knockouts for coming out and pushing us hard!
A few other people I need to thank:
Kitty and
Flexi, who served as alternates for this roster, allowing Valerie and Disharmony to show us what they're made of.
Missy and
Beefcake, our coaches.
Members of
Albany All Stars Roller Derby,
Capital District Men's Roller Derby,
Central New York Roller Derby,
Utica Roller Girls, the
Quadfathers,
Ithaca League of Women Rollers, and other leagues who made it out to see the bout (let me know if you were there and I missed your league!). Thank you all so much for supporting Local Derby!!
All the fans! Thank you for your support! Derby!!!
For this bout we also introduced to brand new skaters: Valerie Valkyrie and Disharmony! Both girls have previously written guests posts (Val 1 | 2 and Disharmony). Anyway, these two have been KICKING ASS at practice so I knew they were ready. Disharmony is always where I need her to be when I'm jamming - up in the front clearing me a path! She's got great endurance and always gives 100% on the track. She rules.
