Satisfying end to a great year for Dust City Rollers
The third Austrian Roller Derby Championships took place from November 30th to December 1st. The event was hosted by the Fearless Bruisers – Roller Derby Innsbruck, who did an amazing job organizing this year’s champs. We played four games on two days and managed to take back the third place!
The first game for the Dusties on Saturday was against the newest team in Austria, SBG Knockouts Roller Derby. We have already shared the track with skaters from Salzburg on different occasions, but it was exciting to play against an entirely new team. Salzburg was a strong opponent, but we managed to win 144:89 in the end.
The Dusties played the hosts, Fearless Bruisers, on their second game on Saturday. Innsbruck were as strong as expected, but we were able to apply some strategies we’ve prepared, even though we had to focus on defense mostly. Unfortunately we had quite a few penalties on the first day in our team, but this changed for the better on the second day. Innsbruck took the win with 179:75. Thank you, again, for organizing such a great event!
On the second day we played Vienna and Linz. We could feel that it was already the second day and that we were a little exhausted. Unfortunately, within our team we had a few health problems over the weekend including cramps, migraines, colds and one of our strongest blockers – J. Butcher – wasn’t able to play at all due to illness in the week before champs. J. managed to travel to Innsbruck despite everything and joined their team on the bench.
The first game was against Vienna Roller Derby and we enjoyed playing our big derby sisters a lot! VRD play amazing and clean roller derby, which is why we had a great time on track. The game ended 302:40 for Vienna Roller Derby. A few times, we could implement some new offense strategies, but most of the game we had to focus on defense. Fortunately, we could reduce penalties on the second day. For the first three games, our guests from Ljubljana Kriss Me and Rea Stardust joined us as blockers on track. Marica Mandona from VRD played all four games as a guest. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts!
The last game on Sunday was the one we were definitely most excited about. The Steelcity Rollers from Linz were founded a few months before us and started off on a very similar level. We always went back and forth with wins between the two teams. In the first year of champs, we could take home bronze. In the second, the third place went to Linz, so, naturally, we were extremely nervous about who would win this game! We immediately managed to get a head start and were able to extend it up to around 30 points. However, shortly before half time we played a disastrous jam that cost us our lead. Linz were able to score 25 points and there was a tie. We immediately took a time out and tried to get back our focus. After halftime we started with a few strong jams and could take the lead again. Still, it was close for the most part, so we had to really give our all until the very end. We won the game 93:81 so we could take home bronze again!
We definitely could have shown a little more confidence and actually apply more of what we’ve been practicing this year, but overall we are very happy with our performance and hope to improve next year. We’ve welcomed a few new blockers on the team, as well as a new jammer – Johammer – who used to be a blocker before. Special shout out to Lisilotta Rollgardina, who only started skating in February this year, and already played as a blocker with us in all four games! Moreover, we were very happy to have a great bench team at champs and all the other games this year.
Our officials, Captain Robvious, Cloud Stripe and Confuzzed were also quite busy officiating as referees all weekend, and so was Thea who took up different positions as Non-Skating-Official. Thanks for your support!
On our way back from Innsbruck we treated ourselves to some relaxing hours at the spa. For next year, we have a few exciting things planned, so we hope to see you at one of our bouts. For now, we wish everyone relaxing holidays and a happy new year!
