Team falls to Blue Ridge Roller Girls
By Troy Lyle
Asheville, NC
Bollocks! Bullshit!! Bastards!!!
Or better yet, bamboozled.
Take your pick of similar expletives, adjectives or verbs and you’d be dead on in describing the frustration the Rollergirls of Central Bluegrass (ROCK) felt after their last bout. In their own words they were “whipped, disappointed and crushed.”
By how much is irrelevant. At least in the eyes of Sugar Shock, Ellie Slay, Junk Drawer or any of the other rollergirls who competed and lost to the seasoned hips and rock hard elbows of the Blue Ridge Roller Girls (BRRG) on March 13.
The women of ROCK would rather chalk it up to experience, lesson learned, or better yet, a wake up call.
“We have room to improve. This bout has only fired up our skaters to train harder, hit harder and play harder,” said assistant bench coach, Junk Drawer, who despite the loss iterated how gratifying it was to skate again with the ROCK Squad.
“I am so proud of our skaters for giving their all, and getting up and skating harder every time they were knocked down,” said Drawer. “They [BRRG] were more aggressive with their hits and played a strong game, but I think both teams were evenly matched in skating ability and we definitely played with more heart.”
But alas heart wasn’t enough to overcome the early lead of BRRG. By the end of the first period BRRG had all but sealed the deal. Yet ROCK continued to skate with purpose, relentlessly fighting off blocks and working on their jams. As team captain Ellie Slay put it, she skated out her dissatisfaction and planned for a little vengeance.
“I think I could have skated the entire night if it meant we would’ve been able to redeem ourselves,“ she said. “I was so pissed! My entire backside was skinned to hell and bleeding and I had no idea … I didn’t even feel it until well after the bout was over.”
Slay also noted how she needed to be more of a team player if ROCK is to have more success in the future.
“I learned I can’t do it all myself, and I don’t have to,” she said. “I’m much more effective when I work with my partner, pairing up and just taking turns hitting. I just need to hit harder and more frequently from the first whistle to the last.”
Though BRRG continued to lay blow after blow for nearly two hours, Sugar Shock said she thinks the team gained some much needed experience and will benefit from the lose and the lesson in the long run.
“I was really proud of the way that we didn’t let our frustration get the best of us,” she said. “If you judged by our attitude throughout, you would have thought that we were the winning team.”
And a team ROCK most definitely is. Look no further than the retaliations of Ryder, Ellie Slay and Ragdoll in the bout’s first period and you’ll understand how much the team cares for each member. All three players were ejected skating their asses off defending and protecting their own.
“Shine and myself played pinball with their jammer at one point, knocking her to the outside, while Sissy Bug hit one of their players so hard she could not get up,” Slay said with a sigh that fully expressed her exhaustion. “We were all feeling the same way … angry, disappointed, frustrated … but that’s what brings us together in the end and makes us stronger as a team and as friends.”
Slay said ROCK will be working even harder in practice before their next bout against the Hard Knox (Brawlers) to ensure a blowout like this one doesn’t come so easy in the future.
“From now on practice will be grueling, with lots of endurance and scrimmage drills. And something else I think we neglected this time … we need more mental preparation … we let those girls get inside our heads and we forgot who we are and what we can do.”
It won’t happen again like this, said Slay.
Correction: ROCK’s home games beginning on June 19 will be played at the Lexington Ice Center, not at Champs as previously reported.
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