Completing the climb up the steps to Chapman Hill Ice Arena’s front doors for roller derby action Saturday night, Roni Landon joked that she, clutching at least one not-so-light bag in each hand, may have “overpacked.”
Perhaps still not fully unpacked after relocating from the Colorado Springs area to Albuquerque, Landon did note she’d brought plenty of extra wheels in case she – or perhaps any of her new Elevated Roller Derby ‘Dawn Patrol’ teammates – required a repair or just favored an upgrade.
Metaphorically speaking, the visiting side certainly skated their wheels off – in the process even earning some applause from the home team’s dedicated fans, stoked their squad for most of the bout had set the pace and seldom slowed.
However, the Durango Roller Girls had other ideas. The home team took care of business with a 175-144 win over Elevated Roller Derby.
“Even toward the end they started cheering for us a little bit,” said ‘Kupcake Kamikaze’ Landon, who made her ERD debut while still rocking her Pikes Peak Roller Derby (for which she’d skated the past three seasons) uniform. “The atmosphere here was amazing; the (opposing) team was very welcoming and … the crowd was fantastic. That’s all we can hope for!”
With multiple team members, including stalwart Kelsey ‘Eager Beaver’ Beaver, back in action after being unavailable for last month’s loss to the Salida-centric rival Arkansas Valley High Rollers, DRG managed to blast out to an immediate 13-0 lead – via Beaver outdoing Malari ‘Trauma Queen’ Page during an exciting first two minutes.
DRG steadily increased it to as much as 32 points, 64-32, after a three-jam sequence featuring Beaver, Kelli ‘Atomic’ Henry and Jo ‘Jo Mama’ Florence – who, after emerging against the Rollers as a capable offensive asset, admitted the prospect of facing big-city resistance had her both energized and on edge.
Despite officially being Elevated’s ‘B’ bunch, Dawn Patrol engaged its A-game and suddenly rallied to swipe a 75-73 lead with 7:08 left in the opening 30-minute half. Durango then wisely used a timeout with 5:01 to go and the Patrol still holding a 76-75 lead, and Beaver regained DRG a short-lived 79-76 advantage before Elevated fought back to take an 86-81 lead into the 15-minute intermission.
“This was only our second game as a team together,” Page said, alluding to Dawn Patrol’s 272-172 away loss on April 26 to the Los Alamos Derby Dames at the open-air Los Alamos County Ice Rink. “We were bringing on some of our newer blockers, trying something new, and just going in with attitude. It doesn’t matter what the score is, as long as we’re all trying and putting our whole heart into it.”
Meanwhile, the Roller Girls’ jammers began finding, after the restart, ways through the chaos, and Durango regained the upper hand, 107-106, with 22:47 remaining. Dawn Patrol soon went up 117-112, but Durango benefited from a timeout taken with 18:50 left and, roughly 90 seconds later, retied the score at 117.
Elevated’s sunrise-seekers would respond, and forged themselves a 127-125 lead with precisely 12 minutes to go. Two minutes later, that thrill was gone. For good, as it turned out; Beaver repeatedly broke around and through Dawn Patrol – saved from further damage by only the two-minute jam clock – for a bout-altering 25 points, putting DRG ahead 150-127 and on course to a much-needed 175-144 victory in the team’s last home appearance this summer.
“What we decided to do was just stay calm and get low; the lower you are, the harder it is for them to take you out,” DRG blocker Jessica ‘Messy Jessy’ Gregg said. “There’s no better feeling as a blocker than just watching your jammer go around in circles, again and again and again. Honestly, by the end of this game I was almost in tears; I’m so proud of this team for working hard to get where we are.”
The Roller Girls will now regroup before traveling next month for their Aug. 16 rematch against Arkansas Valley.
