Feb 1, 2016 | Bout News

New Year Knock Out: Atomic Bombshells Clobber Garda Belts

By Fire Wally

The Atomic Bombshells won their second bout of the Minnesota RollerGirls regular season during the first Minnesota RollerGirls event of 2016, a 150-85 victory over the Garda Belts. Led by an outstanding scoring effort by jammer Brickyard, the Bombshells maintained the lead throughout the entire game. Their victory earns them the second seed in the upcoming Golden Skate postseason tournament starting with the Semifinal bout on February 6th.

First Half

The Atomic Bombshells were dominant through the first half of gameplay, kicked off by a 4-0 jam from Riotchu and a 16-point effort from Brickyard. Diamond Rough and LaRotonda contributed heavily to Brickyard’s power jam as blockers, aggressively separating the Garda blockers and clearing a path for their jammer to get unimpeded scoring passes. After the first four minutes of the game, the Bombshells were up 20-0.

Bri Zuss struck back for the Garda Belts on the next jam, taking advantage of a Bombshells jammer penalty and some well-timed offensive clears from Citizen Pain and Siren Annie to earn 11 points against Roley Ann Lena’s 6. A few jams later, however, Brickyard set in stone a pattern that would continue for the rest of the bout – the Gardas were going to have a very hard time stopping her. Well-supported by the rest of the Bombshell’s jammer rotation, Brickyard got 3-4 jams of rest in between each attempt and used those fresh legs to get multiple scoring passes in each attempt.

Near the end of the first half, Brickyard and Hurtrude Stein scored a 1-2 punch for the Bombshells, combining for 39 points to make the score 96-22, a score which would remain stable for the rest of the half, ending 99-24 in favor of the Bombshells.

Second Half

The Garda Belts didn’t score enough to overcome the Bombshells first half advantage, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t make things interesting. Hal’luci-Jen struck first for the Gardas, racking up a 20-point jam against the Bombshells on a well-executed power jam. Luci did a great job “following her blocker” Tara Bichapart while Tara cleared a path for her jammer. Second Hand Smoke got an easy lead call on the next jam after Siren Annie capped off the outside of the Bombshells’ 4-wall, then skated to a quick 5-point pass.

That brought the score to 99-49 Bombshells, a gap that would stay relatively stable for the next 10 minutes of gameplay. Scootaloo and Luci scored small victories for the Garda Belts, but they were answered in turn by Riotchu and Brickyard. Hurtrude Stein widened the lead with a 13-point power jam effort that made the score 124-66 with 4 minutes left on the clock. Scootaloo and Beach Slap both had solid jams in the closing minutes while Garda blockers found a late rhythm and kept Riotchu and M’Alice contained, but Smoka Hontas earned lead on the last jam and twisted the knife with a 23-point final jam to make the final score a 150-85 Bombshells victory.