The Redneck Betties roller derby team skated their way to a convincing 209-91 win over the visiting Saskatoon Killa Bees Saturday.
“We really committed to trying to go on offense,” explained coach Vic Vega. “We have a smaller facility at the Colonel Clifton Centre, so most times we end up with three blockers rather than four. So we thought we are practicing with three all year, so lets take one person and just create havoc for the other blockers. It worked really well for us. Our jammers didn’t get held up, I think we had lead jam probably 90 percent of the time, it felt like it at least. We always want to improve and get better. This was a way tougher team than last time we saw them, so that means it was working.”
This was the second meeting of the season for the Redneck Betties and Killas Bees and the game featured some punishing hits as well of some physical battles in the trenches.
“These girls have so much fun playing each other,” said Vic Vega. “They know each other, a lot of them have been in the derby world for five, six years. Sometimes it goes to old-school derby. That is a part that we looked at too, is if you are not paying attention we want to hit you. We caught a couple girls not paying attention and all of a sudden you hit them and our jammers are by and they have no idea what happened. It was fun to see some of the bigger hits out there. At the same time it is a different game every month out there. The game changes and players change and we have to adapt to it and try and do something that works and it has been good for us.”
Arc Flash was named the Killas’ Bees Top Blocker, while Death KNELLa was their Top Jammer. Shell On Earth was the Redneck Betties’ Top Blocker, while Wyld Chyld was named the Top Jammer.
Vic Vega was pleased with the contributions the team got from throughout the roster.
“We have been practicing getting more people jamming. Back six, seven years ago we had set jammers and they jammed, that’s all they did. Not we have been practicing really hard to have, if we have 14 girls on the roster, we have 14 girls who can jam if we need them to. In Calgary, if we ran into some injury troubles, you’re tired, we had to go with a bunch of girls that can jam.”
The Redneck Betties will be in Lethbridge for a tournament next weekend.
“Now we are going to Lethbridge for another tournament, you’re going to get tired, it’s three or four games in 36 hours. You need to have everyone ready to go and they really are stepping up and contributing,” he added.
The Redneck Betties will be hosting a home event on July 21, which will feature male and female skaters from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. They will host their final home bout on September 16.
