Halifax Bruising Banditas v Spa Town Roller Girls - Report
Photo courtesy of Dizzy Dez Le-Tog
HBB 193 - 116 STRG
With the last game of the year the Bruising Banditas come home with a win!
We had the pleasure of scrimming with the ladies from Spa Town a couple of months ago and knew that they were a strong, fierce, hard-hitting team but we did not let their size and strength intimidate us. We knew that we had our own game to play and if we kept focused and disciplined we could come away victorious.
This was also the first game with our newly elected Captain and Vice-Captain as well as our first game with Scooby Zoom as out Bench Coach. We could feel going into the bout that we were going to start as we meant to go on!
From the first whistle we showed our skill and control with Sonic Ruth putting some early points up for the Banditas. The Spa Town walls proved tough and their blockers packed a big wallop but our jammers' agility and footwork skills kept us manoeuvrable enough to dodge the hits and find the gaps. Our blockers' quick wits meant that our offence was super effective and kept the Spa Town blockers from reforming for long enough for the points to rack up. We trusted in own training and didn't get drawn into playing their game. Spa Town suffered for penalties in the first half with our jammers often facing 3 or even 2 person walls.
By half time the Banditas were in the lead 105 – 36 with only 2 penalties conceded in the entire first half.
In the second half we kept up the pressure and continued to increase our lead but it was obvious the Spa Town players had had an effective half time talk. They came out with a renewed vigour and focus that started to effect the way we played. About 10 minutes into the second half we started to suffer some heavy penalties with two of our blockers earning 6 penalties within the space of 15 minutes. Our concentration slipped and we began to lose each other on track. Spa Town took advantage of this and began to claw back the deficit, breaking the 100 point mark mid-way through the second half. Thankfully a couple of well places Time-Outs brought us back together and we managed to face the last 10 minutes with the calmness, communication and focus that we started the game with.
With 40 seconds left on the clock our Scooby Zoom called for our jammer to call off the jam to give us one last hurrah. The star was given to Fury to jam the last jam of the game and, in her last game for the Banditas for a while, she got lead jammer and took us to the end of the clock and a victory for the Bruising Banditas!
We are so pleased and proud to have won our last game of the season. Our hard work in training has paid off and we are glad that we can share this win with you all! This has set us up nicely for next year; Spa Town are currently competing in Tier 4 of the British Championships and this game is a good indicator of how we will fare next year. We have a huge list of things to work on and are ready to get cracking. Hopefully this will be the start of a Banditas winning streak!
On a sad note, this was Fury's last game with the Banditas for a little while. We wish her all the best and all the r&r as she takes her sabbatical from roller derby, don't stay away for too long!
Bout Awards:
Best Blocker - Bob 'n' Weave
Best Jammer - Sonic Ruth
MVP - Fury
Congrats ladies!
