3/8/11-The Fox Cityz Foxz Scream Puffz completed an unfortunate trifecta in the ((painfully)) early morning hours of Sunday, March 6th, falling to fellow WFTDA members ((and lower-case z pluralizerz)) the Sioux Falls Roller Dollz Doll Starz for the third time in the last ten months. Hosting what is colloquially referred to as a “hangover bout” – an unpublicized, low-key affair held when a traveling team happens to be in town long enough to participate in a quick, but fully-sanctioned, game – the Foxz added a 227-83 home loss to an October road loss and May 2010 neutral site shellacking at the hands of the rugged South Dakotans.
After a 0-0 first jam, the Foxz started the second jam with pivot Woman O War in the penalty box on an out-of-bounds block. WoW was quickly and unfortunately joined by Foxz jammer Boun C Ballz, and the visitors wasted no time in exploiting their numerical advantage, racing thru the depleted Fox Cityz pack for multiple grand slams. Just as WoW was returning to play, Wilma Fingerdo was boxed on a low block, maintaining a 4-3 pack advantage for Sioux Falls which they continued to ruthlessly exploit. Ballz was able to scratch out four points at the end of the jam, but the damage had been done: When the dust had settled, Julia Wild had staked the Roller Dollz to a 23-4 lead, and the wild rumpus was in full swing.
Any Foxz hope of getting back in the game evaporated in a haze of penalty minutes – the Foxz went seventeen straight jams before managing to keep all five skaters on the track from whistle to whistle, ringing up well upwards of twenty minutes of penalty time in the first half. By comparison, the Doll Starz benefited from a fairly clean game, earning only six total penalty minutes in the period. This disparity in sin bin occupancy allowed the Doll Starz' jammer rotation of Hollicidal Maniac, Julia Wild, and Jackie O'Smashus to put up some pretty gaudy numbers, ringing up multiple scoring passes on nine of the period's eighteen jams. Secretary of Skate used a powerjam situation in the last ham of the half to break thru for the Foxz sole multiple scoring pass jam of the period, but, at the break, the shell-shocked Foxz found themselves down by the rather distressing margin of 151-29.
The Foxz found some equilibrium in the second period as the penalty minutes began to even out, and were able to hold the Doll Starz to only three multiple scoring pass jams for the half. And, although the Foxz took lead jammer status for seven of the first nine jams of the period, they ultimately could manifest no answer for the Roller Dollz' simple-but-effective strategy of racing out and walling off the front of the pack. The home team repeatedly attempted to neutralize the Doll Starz' walls by trapping a stray Doll Star at the rear of the pack, but the visitors continually countered this counter-strategy by slowing their speed to match the Foxz' pace, never skating past the twenty foot limit that would put them out of play and force them to yield the right-of-way to the Foxz' jammer. The Foxz had no counter-counter-counter strategy in place, and their beleaguered jammer corps spent the morning futilely pounding against the Roller Dollz' walls like so many waves against the Kewaunee breakwater. Highlights for the Foxz included a 20-0 fourth-jam outburst by Lotta Issues ((which accounted for nearly a quarter of the team's total score)), followed by a nice 9-0 sixth by Lolly PopYa, but the Doll Starz took lead for the next six jams in a row, offsetting the Foxz' scoring with a huge 23-0 powerjam in the eleventh courtesy of Hollicidal Maniac. The final score of 227-83 was only a few points off the 229-79 result from October's meeting. Wacky!
Hollicidal Maniac of the Roller Dollz led all scorers with 84 points; Lotta Issues paced the Foxz with 24.
