Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Big One - May 16th - 17th, 2009




This week the Angel Ciy Derby Girls will be hosting the second annual "The Big One" in El Segundo, CA. It's essentially an all-California flat track roller derby tournament that will determine a "Champion" of California. Last year, the tournament was hosted in Davis, CA by the Sac City Rollers and the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls. The B.A.D. All-Stars took home the trophy, while Sacred City took second and ACDG took third.

Competing this year are some new and old faces for the tournament. Coming back for a second shot at the trophy are: Angel City Derby Girls, Central Coast Roller Derby, Orange County Roller Girls, Sac City Rollers, and Sacred City Derby Girls.

This years newly invited teams are the San Diego Derby Dolls and the famous banked-track league the L.A. Derby Dolls. The B.ay A.rea D.erby girls will also be attendance this year but the reigning champions will be sending their B travel team, Plan B.

The eight teams competing were pre-ranked by every participating league prior to the tournament. Their seeding determines who they will play on Saturday during the qualifying rounds. Their rankings are as follows:

1. SCDG Sacrificers
2. ACDG Hollywood Scarlets
3. B.A.D.G. Plan B
4. OCRG Orange Crushers
5. SDDD Wildfires
6. CCRD All-Stars
7. LADD Ri-ettes
8. SCR All-Stars

The tournament begins on Saturday with the eight teams placed into two groups. Group One includes Sacred City, L.A., Bay Area , and San Diego. Group Two is Angel City, OC, Central Coast, and Sac City. Each team will play the other three teams in their group in 30 minute mini-bouts. The top two seeds from each group will advance to the semi-finals on Sunday. Oddly, it seems that there will be two semi-final full length bouts on the second day, but then only a championship bout to follow. How will they determine 3rd and 4th place if the two non-winning semi-final teams don't play each other?

So on to my opinion. Group One looks.... rough. Those are four very established leagues. Sacred City was last year's second place winner and is coming into the tournament ranked as #1. Though Plan B has only played one game (a win against Santa Cruz last year), they are certainly very strong. Stronger than last year, I would say. L.A. and San Diego are well known for being banked track skaters but the Wildfires crushed AZRD earlier this year and fought a tough battle against a top 10 WFTDA team, Duke City last month with a 77 - 71 Duke score. The Ri-ettes have had recent wins against KCDC (a Kansas City and Duke City hybrid team) and Oil City.
Prior to checking the schedule I would put the top four teams to go into the semi-finals to be (in nor particular order): Sacred, BAD, ACDG, and San Diego, with L.A. being a very close number 5. Sadly, the top four won't even be close as only two of those teams can make it out of their first group. The seeding seems a little lopsided, that's all I'm saying...

Group Two will play out the way it should according to the rankings though. ACDG will dominate, Central Coast will probably take second. Sac and OC I think are pretty evenly matched but I think Sac might actually get the upper hand in a bout against OC.

Unfortunately, I will not be attending the tournament this year :( But I'm sure you guys will all tell me how awesome and crazy and fun it was. Good luck to all the teams, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is BADG sending their B Team instead of their A Team?

Veronica Leigh said...

I don't know the answer to that actually. I know we are happy to have our new B team and we booked them in a few places this year. Also, our All-Star team just played a few days ago. I think we have a lot of people who deserve to get more play and the A team was happy to share..

Ms. D'fiant said...

Sorry, i just looked and there's a mistake on the web site.

The consolation bout is scheduled and always has been as we haven't deviated from the first Big One schedule.

Thanks, can't wait!

Ms. D'fiant said...

Oh damn, also, I should mention that seeding was done months ago to determine which teams would be admitted in to the tournament. Fourteen applied!

It's clear that San Diego Wildfires are a whole 'nuther story now.

it'sgonnabeSOawesome!

Unknown said...

Sac beat Central Coast the last time they met. But a week before that SVRG beat Sac. And about a month and a half before that Central Coast beat SVRG. Weird huh?