By Rei Zerburnn of Lilac City Rollergirls
Fishnet Burnns
 
Rat City v. Windy City
 
Rat City and Windy faced off on Saturday for the right to play the Texecutioners in the semifinal bout.
 
Rat City is a powerful team and the girls from Seattle have had no trouble dominating the Western region throughout the league's history. In fact the biggest loss the Rat City All-Stars have ever suffered in WFTDA sanctioned play was by a slim 11 points, by derby standards, a bout that could have gone either way. So no one really expected the complete smack down they suffered at the hands of Windy City.
 
Perhaps we should have had an inkling though, since Windy City has been on fire this year, riding into Eastern Regionals with huge wins over tournament caliber teams, including the KC Roller Warriors. The girls from Chicago were poised to do it again, and with a series of mishaps and mistakes taking the cha-cha out of Rat City's gidyup, the bout was pretty much a clean sweep.
 
Rat City got off to an explosive start, with Femme Fatale scoring 12 points in the first jam, despite not having lead jammer status. For the next 15 minutes, however, Rat City's game completely imploded. The dangerous D-Bomb took a hard hit and was out the rest of the bout, and a slew of penalties sent Seattle's jammers and blockers to the box, at one point leaving a single Rat City skater on the track, and opening the door wide for Windy City to take lead jammer in 7 of the first 9 jams.
 
The first half also saw one of Seattle's key jammer's, Femme Fatale, ejected from the game for low blocks at an inopportune time for Rat City, leaving them running another two-woman pack. Windy City didn't hesitate to use the short opposing pack to their advantage and completely control the momentum of the period, holding Rat City to 34 points while piling on 70 of their own.
 
Rat City rallied enough in the second half to start pecking away at Windy's lead, but Chicago's superb jammer lineup, headed up by Kola Loka, Eva Dead and Shocka Conduit absolutely dominated lead jammer status, hamstringing Rat City's scoring ability. Despite the Rat City All-Stars excellent defensive team including D-Bomb, Blond and Bitchen', and Summer Assault, Windy City just kept rocking the scoreboard. Penalized players and not-on-the-track points ultimately sunk Seattle's battleship and let Chicago sweep the game.
 
The final blow came in the middle of the second half with Kola Loka on the line against Ann R. Kissed. Three Rat City skaters, including Kissed, earned trips to the penalty box leaving the Windy City jammer unopposed. Loka put the urethane to the track and threw up an incredible 25 points in grand slams in that jam for Windy City, tying the WFTDA record for most points scored in a jam (previously co-held by Duke's Kim Kamikaze and the retired Snot Rocket) and bringing the score to 47 Rat City, 130 Windy City.
 
Rat City soldiered through, but only managed to tally another 16 points against Windy's 27, losing the bout 63 to157.
 
An elated Windy City advanced to play the Texas Rollergirls for the right to face the winner of the semifinal matchup against Gotham.
 
Windy City MVP: Kola Loka proved her prowess with the jammer star once again with a record-tieing performance for Chicago.
 
Rat City MVP: It was a rough night for Rat City all around, but my pick for MVP would be rising star Carmen Getsome, for consistently putting points on the board and showing a lot of heart when short on blockers and getting beat up by the Windy City defense to hang in there for the score.
 
 
Philly v. Bay Area
 
The Philly Rollers clashed with the Girls from the Bay on Saturday to see who would move on to play the Gotham girls in the semifinals.
 
Philly had a great showing at Eastern Regionals, beating out Carolina and almost gaining a huge upset over top-seed Gotham before getting shut down in the final jam.
 
Bay Area, to their own credit, won a knock-down-drag-out slugfest against the equally tournament worthy Rose City Rollers and outright trounced up-and-coming Duke for the right to play at Northwest Knockdown.
 
Philly and Bay Area  have met in sanctioned play before, with Philly gaining a very narrow win over the B.A.D. Girls, and these two teams making their first appearance at Nationals seemed to be the most evenly matched bout on the card. Neither team disappointed either, in what turned out to be one of the closest and most exciting bouts of the weekend.
 
Philly took an early lead, controlling the lead jammer star and racking up 64 points to Bay Area's 18 in the first 20 minutes. The B.A.D. Girls Quickly stepped up their game though, and with the Philly jammer in the box, Grr Lee Burly stepped up to line and knocked down two grand slams and some change to bring the score to 32, Bay Area, 64, Philly.
 
The late first half saw the adaptable Philly begin playing more defensively, with their jammers using positional blocking to preserve their lead margin and blockers focused on neutering the effectiveness of Bay Area's jammers. This smart play combined with key jammer/blocker Pia Mess fouling out of the first half early took some sparkle out of the gold lame' clad B.A.D. Girls and kept them from putting up big points for a halftime score of Bay Area, 44, Philly, 75.
 
B.A.D. Couldn't quite get the momentum to shift in their favor during the second half either, trailing Philly by 20 to 30 points. It wasn't until the final jam, with a score of 84, Bay Area, 103, Philly on the board that the B.A.D. girls suddenly found their sizzle. The talented Kitt Turbo took the star, and with only 2 friendly blockers in the pack, rocketed off the line to steal lead jammer status from Philly's Mo Pain. Turbo seemed satisfied to make the smart play and was literally beginning the motion to call off the jam, when Pain was sent to box. Seeing her opportunity, Turbo opened a bottle of SoCal hot sauce and fired her way through a roof-raising 19 point jam to bring her team to a total of 103 points.
 
With the scoreboard showing 103 Bay Area v. 103 Philly, the crowd went completely nuts, hoping to see the first overtime bout of the tournament. An official review, however, revealed that Mo Pain had scored 4 points before being sent to the penalty box, making the official final score Bay Area, 103, Philly, 107.
 
Philly had edged out the ladies from the Bay once more and would advance to play the Gotham Girls.
 
Philly MVP: With 45 points to herself Philly's jamming machine, Mo Pain was the clear MVP, giving another tireless performance.
 
Bay Area MVP: Scoring 36 points, my pick for B.A.D. MVP is Kitt Turbo. Though she only outpaced fellow jammer talent Grr Lee Burly by 7 points, her show-stealing final jam to nearly tie the score against Philly is something the West won't soon forget.
 
 
Texas v. Windy
 
No game of the tournament boasted more drama than this overtime, back-and-forth battle between Windy City and the Texecutioners. Both teams have stellar jammer lineups, Rice Rocket, Bloody Mary and veteran Sparkle Plenty for Texas, and Kola Loka, Eva Dead and mighty mite Shocka Conduit for Chicago, in addition to deep talent pools in their blocking rosters.
 
All cannons were firing on both sides  as the final showdown between east and West began with a bang. Rice Rocket and Lucille Brawl of Texas quickly traded grand slams with Chicago's Eva Dead and Shocka Conduit like jabs at a bantam weight boxing match. Texas managed to control lead jammer status often enough to reverse and early 12 point lead by Windy City, but putting away Windy wasn't going to be that easy. With Texas jammer Morphine starting the final jam of the first half in the box, Kola Loka quickly skated away with a 9 point jam to put Chicago back in the lead for a halftime score of Texas, 45, Windy, 49.
 
The tense see-saw of tit-for-tat jams continued through the second half, with neither team able to swing the momentum in their favor for long. Although Texas managed to take the lead back from Windy mid-way through the second period, cutting the track penalties, both major and minor, called on Rice Rocket kept her cooling her wheels in the sin bin and let Windy steal lead jammer status and peck away at Texas' lead.
 
The final jam of the half pitted Rice Rocket for Texas against Kola Loka for Chicago with the scoreboard locked up tight by a 91-91 stalemate. With Rice Rocket sent to the box for cutting the track, Loka was free to get lead jammer, make an easy one point pass and sew the game up for Windy City. But in a confusing move that could only have been a mistake, Loka killed the jam right after gaining lead jammer status, scoring no points for Windy and sending the game into overtime.
 
The final overtime jam had the best jammer form each team on the line again, Loka vs. Rocket, but with the advantage to Windy as Rice Rocket was still serving the remainder of her penalty from the last jam. Loka, on point this time, took advantage of a pack that was one blocker up in Windy's favor and no jamming opposition to crank out two grand slams before Rice Rocket was out of the box. Once her penalty was up, Rice Rocket peeled out of the sin bin faster than her namesake, trying to make up lost time and points against Loka, but was too careless on her second pass, getting sent back to the box for cutting the track and letting Windy City skate away with the win.
 
The final score was Texas, 95, Windy, 106. Windy advanced with the right to play for the top slot in the championship bout, while Texas had to settle for a third place bout for the second year running.
 
 
Gotham v. Philly
 
Gotham moved on from neatly sending Western upstarts Duke home to completely handling the Philly Liberty Belles in the semifinals.
 
Gotham absolutely owned the lead jammer slot in all but 7 jams of the entire game, and with the New York power triad of Suzy Hotrod, Cheapskate, and Bonnie Thunders laying down double digit jams with 'aint no thang but a chicken wing' ease, Philly's game was cracked almost as soon as they started.
 
Gotham blew Philly's doors off in the first half, working tight defense and an offense that would crush mere mortals. The Belles couldn't seem to make a dent in the score unless the Gotham jammer was in the box, and even though they hovered within 15 points of Gotham during the first part of the opening period, Gotham quickly moved the score out of reach, ending the half with 87 points to Philly's 19.
 
Th punishment continued in the second half, spearheaded by Cheapskate who put down 7 grand slams in the second period alone, helping hold Philly to 19 points while adding another 81 for New York. Penalty trouble that kept Philly's Perspehone in and out of the box for three consecutive jams only helped Gotham on their way as they moved into triple digits.
 
The Liberty Belles got a little bit of their mojo back when Violet Temper scored a 3-0 jam over Hyper Lynx, moving the score forward for the first time since the end of the first period and bringing Philly to 25 points. Mo Pain, Teflon Donna and Shenita Stretcher managed to add a few more points to the Philly tally, underscored by the hard-hitting blocking machine Robin Drugstores carrying the jammer star for a surprise double grand slam over Cheapskate, but it was a case of too little, too late. Despite the loss of star blocker Beyonslay to minor injury late in the game, there was no way to avoid the stomping that Gotham delivered Philly like a bad New York pizza: 60 minutes and still hard to swallow.
 
In fact the Gotham crew beat Philly so soundly, and right on the heels of their similarly spectacular win over Duke, that many fans began to empty the bleachers at halftime, already certain of the outcome.
 
The final score was Philly, 52, Gotham, 189.
 
Gotham advanced to play the Championship bout against Windy City, while Philly went on to battle the Texecutioners for third place.
 
Philly MVP: This was not a great game for Philly, and not a high-scoring run for any of their jammers. I would give the Most Valuable Player award for this game to Robin Drugstores, who was all over Gotham with the most forceouts of the Belles, and a surprise 10 point blocker-turned-jammer run during the late Philly rally. She even managed to pull up just short of fouling out of the game, which for Drugstores, is a very good thing.
 
Gotham MVP: Cheapskate, with a total 70 points in this matchup and a dizzying flurry of grand slams in the second half, showed that she was worth her weight in gold to the Gotham squad.