Photo Credit: Matt Hardy
The Gold Coast Derby Grrls traveled nearly 700 miles from sunny South Florida for the opportunity to lace skates and do battle with our hometown Classic City Rollergirls in the hostile confines of Athens Arena, in Bogart. It was only the second-longest road trip of the season for the team from Fort Lauderdale, which made an even more epic trek to Milwaukee in June.
Here’s hoping Gold Coast was able to find time for decent sightseeing, rest and relaxation on this road trip, because for 60 minutes they were absolutely tormented by their hostesses.
Defense has been the calling card for CCRG all year, and Saturday night saw more of the same. Stifling walls and tenacious tripods frustrated the Derby Grrls jammers early and often. They could only muster two points in the bout’s first six scoring opportunities, while CCRG consistently got major contributions from its deep and talented jammer rotation. The luxury of being able to send skilled vets to the line like Moshya Brady, BadAsh Booher, Louis Strongarm, New Year’s Slay, Monster and Crazy Cait Lady is an embarrassment of riches, really. No player gets overworked, and opposing defenses never get a chance to pin down jammer patterns and tendancies. CCRG took a commanding 111-48 lead into halftime.
The Gold Coast defense, like most teams Classic City has faced this year, didn’t have an answer for all the fresh legs. And its offense was pretty anemic, outside of the occasionally productive Anakin Skyblocker.
A vocal and near-capacity home crowd enjoyed a drama-free, wire-to-wire 243-89 victory that put a cherry on top of a nearly perfect 2018 season. (The Rollergirls’ Bad News Bs team had likewise defeated the Appalachian Roller Derby 380-160 earlier Saturday.)
In keeping with the Rollergirls’ longstanding tradition of being a local 501(c)3 organization that helps other local nonprofits, a portion of Saturday’s ticket proceeds benefited The Cottage Sexual Assault Center & Children’s Advocacy Center, whose goal is to raise awareness and facilitate the healing of individuals, families and communities affected by sexual violence and child abuse. For more information, look up classiccityrollergirls.com and northgeorgiacottage.org, then stare at the screen.
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