The derby came down to the wire this past weekend in Nanaimo.
The Harbour City Rollers Ship Rex defeated the Victoria Hard Cores 196-194 in the only home bout of the season at the Nanaimo Ice Centre on Saturday night.
The contest was back-and-forth at the end until Ship Rex player Shelby (Shel Shock) Rollefson’s game-winning jam with no time left on the clock.
Kelsey (Hacksaw) Reynolds, chosen MVP jammer, said her team was surprised to be so far behind early in the bout, so once the Ship Rex caught up, it made for an emotional finish.
“Our coach looked at us and we said, ‘Do you guys want to roll the bench or do you want to win?’ So we made some changes to the line and put it all out there,” Reynolds said. “If we had lost, we would have been kind of rewinding and thinking why we didn’t get it because I think we knew we could.”
Tina (Turn’er Over) Haywood of the Ship Rex, chosen MVP blocker, said players’ hearts were pounding over the final few jams and said her team was trying really hard.
“A lot of people on our team, it was their first bout – they hadn’t even done this before – so we did really well, considering,” she said. “Everyone worked really hard, we listened to our coaches, we stayed calm.”
Reynolds said a lot of roller derby bouts end in blowout scores, so Saturday’s squeaker was something a little out of the ordinary.
“It was fun that it was the last jam that mattered,” she said.
In earlier action Saturday at the NIC, the Rollers’ Hydras co-ed team defeated a Victoria co-ed squad 250-84.
GAME ON … The Rollers don’t have any more bouts in Nanaimo in 2017, but the schedule will continue in June with away games on the Lower Mainland and Calgary, followed by the Tidal Tracks tournament in Parksville in July.
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