By Valerie Hurtinelli

The Naptown Roller Girls and the Ohio Roller Girls met for the second time in just over a month on April 17, 2010; the evening would include double-header bouts that pitted NRG’s Warning Belles against the Columbus league’s Gang Green squad and the Tornado Sirens against OHRG’s All-Stars. More than 4,000 fans packed the Pepsi Coliseum at the Indiana State Fairgrounds to watch the home team’s last bout of Season Four, with special guest Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard (freshly dubbed “Power Ballard” for his roller derby debut) in the crowd.

The B teams took the track first, with Naptown’s Jane Ire on the jammer line, poised for her sweet return (after an eight-month hiatus) to roller derby. The opening jams proved highly physical, with both teams putting up such defensive battles that the scoreboard didn’t show a single point until Jane donned the star panty for the second rotation in Jam 5 to put the first 15 points on the board, with the Ohio jammer sitting out a back-blocking penalty in the box. With the NRG pump primed for scoring, the jammer lineup of Racer Xtasy, Willa Hoeflinch, and Trauma-Lina went to work on the Ohio pack. By halftime, the Belles had a solid 48-to-15 lead.

The second half saw more fierce front-of-the pack defense work for NRG under the direction of pivots Asian Sinsation, Noxious Donna, and Sookie Smackhouse, with blockers Jen X and the pocket-sized destroyer Eve Elle delivering Mack-truck hits. Gang Green skaters Handle Barz, Seoul Sister, and Dixie Heartless kept the Ohio pack on point, blasting out paths for jammers Wendra Woman, Z, and Paige Bleed. But the Belles used strategy and well-honed teamwork to control the pack speed, allowing their jammers to lap the pack jam after jam. The final score of 178 to 29 in Naptown’s favor capped off an undefeated season for NRG’s junior-varsity team.

In the second, headline bout, the Sirens took the track against the Columbus team’s All-Stars and came out with guns blazing. Naptown’s Maiden America wore the star panty in the first jam, meeting Ohio’s HellionBOI on the line. The first jam put two NRG points on the board and started a trend that wasn’t broken until Jam 10, when the All-Stars’ Z managed to use her lead-jammer status to get the first four points for her team. By halftime, the Sirens had the lead at 51 to 5.

The Sirens showed no signs of slowing down when they came back for the second period. To get things started, jammer Amooze Booche juked her way through a penalty-depleted Ohio pack to score a game-high 14 points to HellionBOI’s zero. The All-Star jammers answered with some firepower of their own. In Jam 19, Kitty Liquorbottom increased the Ohio score by two points, and her team continued to put points on the board for the following seven jams. Nevertheless, with 15 minutes left in the game, Naptown held the lead at 105 to 18.

Meanwhile in the pack, Sirens Cereal Killer, 4 Leaf Cleaver, and Sweet C delivered some blockbuster hits, with Ima Hurchu, Psychedelic Sandy, Shadi Layne, and Katya Lookin following suit with their trademark well-placed blocks. Pivot Ana Slays Ya covered every inch of the track at the front of the pack, a pesky last line of defense for Ohio jammers Foxy Force, Hell Camino, Z, and even OHRG’s highest scorer (with 11 points) Phoenix Bunz. Each of Naptown’s jammers—Booche and Maiden with the added support of Blue Messiah and the always-dependable Slammy Faye—put upwards of 30 points on the board. That, combined with the defensive strategies of Naptown’s pack, gave the Indianapolis team a clear advantage over the visitors. By the final whistle, NRG had the win, with a score of 133 to 34.