Akron Roller Girls skate Rings around the ROSI

In Double Header NEO brings home a win and a loss
Tallmadge, Ohio (8-21-2010) – “Fight Up Your Life” instead of the similarly named Spice Girls album must have been the mantra of the NEO Rock n Rollers as they bested the Rollergirls Of Southern Indiana, or ROSI, bringing a second win to their home season. Not so victorious were the Audio Assault, NEO’s B team, that received a metaphoric spanking from sister league Burning River Roller Girls’ B team the Hazmat Crew. Rock n’ Rollers: 101-42; Audio Assault: 32-90.
The Audio Assault gave a good effort against a team that fielded some very strong players assembled from the ranks of BRRG’s 4 home teams. Some of those players are tried and true veterans of the sport and know how to put the hurt on as well as some rookies that are already showing promise as A team prospects. The short story is that the Hazmat was a better team. They were able to skate around AA’s defense and showed no mercy in sending score hungry Cupquake to the jammer line to show AA just how good a jammer can be in her first year. However, Monty Pipebomb and Rosa Mariposa from AA were not going down without a fight and Pipebomb looked to have skated probably her best game of the season having also played in the A game that followed.
The Main Event:
The Rock n Roller Girls went into this game perhaps overestimating ROSI’s skill. They did their research the results of which were making them sweat. ROSI had appeared to have an unwavering season so far and NEO was already down some key players due to injury. But they went into the game determined to show their hometown fans exactly why they are the best roller derby team in Akron. They came out guns ablazin’ and took control of the game early on.
Clearly the NEO’s favorite jammer for the night, Twin Pistol led the scoring with 32 points in 12 turns on the line. She’s certainly doing well this season and could very well earn the Triple Threat title at the end of the year. Not far behind her were Phantom Fox with 23 points in 8 turns as well as newcomer Holley Car Brader with 22 points in 6 jams. What tends to be forgotten when looking at the amazing abilities of a jammer is that she has to rely on her teammates to fight for her and defend her so she can pile up those points. Watching these skaters work together is sometimes more rewarding than any other individual’s feats.
In a relatively clean game, penalty wise, Chrissie B. Hynde was able to keep her Tsk Tsk Tiara as Queen of the Penalty Box, but with a modest two trips to the cheater’s chair.
The entire event raised money and awareness for the American Red Cross so in all (insert corny cliché here:) Everyone was a winner.
Tune in this month on September 18th to watch NEO take on Killamazoo in the bout titled: Skate Outta Akron. Yeah, Boiiiieee!!