Roller Derby Recap: JDB vs. Hudson Valley Horrors

On the last Saturday before Halloween, the Jerzey Derby Brigade (JDB) hosted the Hudson Valley Horrors before a largely costumed audience in Morristown, which itself abounded with costumed bar-hoppers.

The score see-sawed in the early jams of last night’s bout. An early lead by JDB vanished as Hudson’s Durty Surely in a power jam put the Horrors ahead 14-19. Hudson held the lead for several minutes until JDB’s #8 Lil Mo Peep added 19 points in a single jam and tilted the advantage back to JDB 38-25. JDB did not surrender it again.

Both teams were tactically good at blocking in formations and individually, with #0 Daemon’s Mistress (Hudson) and #1 LL Kill J (JDB) getting in some well-timed individual hits. Jammers for both teams were skilled at initial breakthroughs to lead status. Heavy lifting of the starred helmet for JDB was by A-Bomb,  Lil Mo Peep, and Val Royale; for Hudson most of the jams were skated by Better off Red, Durty Surely, Eradikater, and Smashing Pumpkin. The difference was that JDB lead jammers more often made multiple passes once they broke through, which is another way of saying JDB blockers held up Hudson jammers longer. Hudson jammers regularly were pursued fairly closely and so were forced to call off jams after a single pass. Blocking was often aggressive with a takedown of Val Royale inadvertently taking down a ref as well. JDB expanded its lead in the latter part of the first half, ending the half with a substantial but not insurmountable advantage of 103-48.

In the second half, as often happens in derby, the trailing team redoubled efforts. Hudson skaters took lead jammer status in the first three jams, adding a few points at a time. A triple pass by JDB’s A-Bomb, however, strengthened JDBs position from substantial to dominant by bringing the score to 130-57. Knockdowns became more frequent on both sides as blocking stiffened, but the scoring pattern persisted. In a star pass maneuver #64 Madeleine Alfight took JDB over 200. #1979 Smashing Pumpkin put Hudson over 100. Despite a strong multipass final jam for Hudson’s Durty Surely, the clock ran out with the final score at 228-131 in favor of JDB.

MVPs:

Hudson Valley Horrors:

#59 Durty Surely (jammer)

#666 Rxy Ramalotte (blocker)

JDB

#8 Lil Mo Peep (jammer)

#93 Freudian Slap (blocker)