The Eves of Destruction’s A-Team was in Washington this past weekend to participate in the annual Big LeBOUTski Tournament, put on by Storm City Roller Derby. The A-Team entered the tournament as the bottom seed, but two solid performances will see them net a positive WFTDA score for the weekend.
The A-Team is currently ranked #192 in the worldwide WFTDA, and took on #155 Gorge Roller Derby from The Dalles, OR on Saturday morning. The A-Team beat the score spread they needed to come out with a positive result, despite losing 147-197 to the higher ranked team. Femme Fatality was awarded MVP Jammer with Hot-Piece-a-Sass picking up MVP Blocker.
The afternoon game was a rematch of last month’s game against the Bellingham Roller Betties (Bellingham, WA), which saw the A-Team victorious. Bellingham put on a strong showing at the Big LeBOUTski, having done their homework following their defeat last month, besting the A-Team 173-103. Their strong walls and big hits made room for their jammers to begin racking up the points early and the A-Team was unable to catch up. Femme Fatality was again awarded MVP Jammer, with Tina F. Lawless grabbing MVP Blocker.
Both games, while losses for the A-Team will boost their WFTDA rankings. Despite the scoreboard results, the A-Team had a great weekend and played well as a unit.
A-Team Coach, Pfury S Pfaff, put the losses in perspective:
“We knew coming in that this weekend was going to be tough mentally and physically. We came in with a plan to play strong and together, with a focus on keeping the scores competitive, which we did. Overall, we executed our game plans and achieved the goal of having a positive WFTDA result at the end of the tournament.”
Two skaters made their A-Team charter debuts this weekend: Violet Criminal and Margaret Smackwood. Violet Criminal was an integral part of the defensive plan, and her on-track communication was a highlight versus Bellingham. Margaret Smackwood was part of the core jamming rotation, and was the top-scoring jammer through the first half against Gorge Roller Derby, putting up a significant number of the A-Team’s points for the weekend.
Roller derby returns to Victoria on April 6th for the 2019 home-opener mini-tournament, Capital City Chaos. Three games will be open to the public and will feature the A-Team vs Sitka Sound Slayers of Sitka, Alaska and Emerald City Roller Derby of Eugene, OR.
