CRG vs. The Chicago Outfit

Last night was a rough night for the Chicago Outfit as their two teams, the Shade Brigade and the Syndicate, took on the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Silent Lambs and Black Sheep at the Cincinnati Gardens. The Outfit is a relatively new team organized in 2007 that became a WFTDA apprentice team last September. The Outfit was no match for CRG. As expected, CRG came away with two big wins in front of their home crowd.

In the first bout the Silent Lambs took on the Shade Brigade. The Lambs were in control of the bout from the start. The CRG pack was able to contain the Shade Brigade jammers and by the 20 minute half the Lambs were ahead with a score of 53 to 8. The photo at right shows Bex Pistol, one of the Silent Lamb jammers, in the open and looking ahead to the pack. The scoring picked up on both sides during the second half but the Lambs continued to outpace the Shade Brigade scoring by about double! The photo below shows The Librarian and Maime putting the squeeze on a Shade Brigade jammer to stop her from scoring. The final score was Lambs 140 and Shade Brigade 45. An excellent showing and quite a few of the CRG rookies got to see action. Congrats to the Lambs on another solid win!



The second bout, a full hour, unfortunately was a repeat of the first bout for The Outfit. The Black Sheep were in control from the start and the solid CRG blocking and smart play slowed the Syndicate scoring. The Syndicate skaters Lola Blow and Sweet Mary Pain led the Syndicate jammers, but there wasn’t enough depth yet in their team to keep up the scoring. The CRG blocking was just too tough for the Syndicate to handle. There were occasions where Syndicate blockers double teamed the CRG jammers to slow them down a bit, but they couldn’t keep that up and the Black Sheep jammers were scoring easily. The depth of the CRG team was illustrated by having Trauma and Dr. McDerby step in to the jammer rotation. The photo at right shows Trauma wearing the star, smiling as she skates past the Trauma Center cheering section. At the end of the first period, the Black Sheep had opened up a sizeable lead and the bout ended with CRG winning 141 to 86. The first photo below shows Sadie rounding the turn at full speed. The second photo shows Nuk'em going shoulder to shoulder with Lola Blow.





Once again the Queen City Rainbow Band was there to play during the bout and the Wooly Bully was having a ball. During the bout I was up in the stands talking with some friends and I have to say the sound is much better in the stands. Caesar and The Tank are much easier to hear up there and they really do a great job explaining the action for folks new to derby bouts. After the bout Dianne got photos of me with Bombtrack (at right) and Captain Painway (below right) – both skaters for the Silent Lambs. Thanks to both of them for taking time for a photo. Check out the usual blogs and photo sources for other opinions on the bout. With the attendance explosion, there are a lot of things to read and photos to peruse. You can see the rest of my photos in my Flickr pool here.

The next bout should be a bit more exciting as the North Star Roller Girls from Minneapolis make the trip to the Gardens on May 28th. In the latest DNN Power rankings, CRG is #19 and NSRG is #24. CRG will face a bit more competition from that match up, but I'm confident they'll come out on top. Catch the derby fever and cheer on CRG at the next bout!