Anyone who says Culver City doesn’t have much to contribute to the thriving Los Angeles sports scene clearly wasn’t at Veterans auditorium on Feb.16.
If they had been, they would have witness a divine combination of speed, grace and bone crushing hits, as Culver City’s own Angel City Derby Girls dominated the visiting Santa Cruz Derby Girls in women’s flat track roller derby in their first home bout of the season.
With the grit of a hockey team and monikers worthy of the XFL, the women of ACDG provide entertainment that can’t be found in more traditional, mainstream sports.
For those unfamiliar with the derby, the rules are fairly simple. Each team has five players on the track at a time, four blockers and one jammer.
The blockers try to clear the way for their own jammer to pass while at the same time keeping the opposing team’s jammer behind them. After the jammer’s first lap around the track, she gets a point for every opposing player she passes.
If a player does something illegal, like tripping or cutting corners on the track, she gets sent to the penalty box.
The fewer players you have on the track, the harder it is to score and stop the other team from scoring, especially when one of the player’s you’re missing is your jammer. When there’s only one jammer on the track, it’s called a power jam.
One good power jam can decide a game, but so can a few good collisions, both of which are extremely common.
This bout was a double header, pitting two Angel City teams against two from Santa Cruz. The first game pitted the Angel City Road Ragers against the Santa Cruz Seabright Sirens, the second featured the Angel City Rocket Queens taking on the Santa Cruz Harbor Hellcats.
The Ragers set the tone early, getting a power jam on only the second jam of the game, which allowed standout jammer Alkali Mettle to pick up 15 points, giving her team an 18-1 lead over the Sirens.
But the bout wasn’t over yet. Three jams and a power jam later, The Sirens’ Chispa and Roasted Pony had turned the tide and given Santa Cruz the lead at 34-25.
In a scoring spree spearheaded by Alkali Mettle and punctuated by a collision induced pirouette by jammer Filthy One, the Ragers regained their status atop the scoreboard 97-93, a lead they would hold until the end of the first half.
As soon as the clock started ticking on the second half, Road Ragers started to pull away. AC Slaughter and Ashley, alternating between jams, went on a 97-7 run to give the Road Ragers a 216-140 advantage. A late run by the Sirens’ Chispa was too little too late as the Road Ragers walked away with the win, 220-161.
While the first bout of the double header showed off the explosiveness of roller derby offense, the second, which featured Angel City’s Rocket Queens against Santa Cruz’s Harbor Hellcats was a clinic on well executed defense.
The game didn’t see double digits for the first 8 jams, and didn’t see its first triple digit score until nearly the end of the first half. The momentum shifted at the hands of Angel City’s Stormy Heather, who capitalized on the game’s first power jam to bring the score to 31-13.
Despite the best efforts of the Hellcats’ jammers Hellaluna (playing in her first adult game after turning 18 and graduating from the junior league), Ace Wenchura and Special Agent Utah, the Santa Cruz offense was suffocated by the Rocket Queens’ impenetrable wall of blockers, lead by Booty Ninja and Alba Toss.
Their dominant performance included holding Special Agent Utah to a two minute long scoreless power jam (described by the announcers as being as rare as a “tiny unicorn”).
Meanwhile, Rocket Queen jammers Thrashy Lingerie, Blackstar Heroine and Danzigzag went on a 62-4 run, despite several devastating hits from Sirens’ blocker Hostile Witness. That gave Angel City all the breathing room they needed. The final score was 170-100.
Following the game, Alkali Mettle expressed her satisfaction at finally getting the home season started.
“We’ve been scrimmaging together for almost a year,” Mettle said.
“This was the first time we got to play as a team. I was really impressed with all my teammates.”
If you’re interested in watching the Angel City Derby Girls in action, the next home bout open to the public is on March 16 at Veterans Auditorium.
It’s a rematch of the heated rivalry between Angel City’s Hollywood Scarlets and Sacramento’s Sacred City Sacrificers.
There is no love lost between the two evenly matched teams. “We hate each other,” said the Scarlets’ Rachel Rotten (who was there to support the other ACDG teams), “It should be a nailbter.”
