On Saturday, the Silicon Valley Roller Girls grabbed another victory led by star jammer Pia Mess. The Silicon Valley Roller Girls field two teams, the KillaBytes and the Dot.Kamikazes. The doubleheader action was just the third home matches for the two teams this season. This match it was the Dot.Kamikazes who cruised to a 283-63 victory over the Shasta Assassins.
The Dot.Kamikazes got off to an impressive start, earning lead jammer on the first seven jams of the match en route to building a 55-0 lead in the first few minutes. That start was a big confidence booster as the Bay Area roller derby squad simply rolled on from there.
“We’ve actually been practicing really hard on our starts and our offensive plays,” noted Mess. “Literally up until this past Thursday, that’s what we’ve been going over, and obviously it really showed tonight that what we’ve been working on paid off.”
“It’s always good to play with a lead—it establishes our confidence,” noted fellow jammer E-Wrecks. “It puts us in a good mental place just to know that we can stop them in the early going. I knew as the game went on that it would become a grind. Our jammers tire as time goes on and it becomes more of a blockers’ game, so getting those points early meant when I got tired later I wouldn’t have to freak out as much because we already had those points on the board.”
Both E-Wrecks and Pia Mess were far more impressive than their counterpart jammers for Shasta. In fact, it is Mess who will fly to China next weekend to compete with Team USA at the World Roller Games.
“I went through a yearlong tryout process,” commented Mess on Team USA. “There were tryouts all across the United States and every time you make a cut you get invited to the next one—wherever that may be. This past March they made their final decision for the final 20. We go to China, I actually leave this next Saturday. We get to compete in the World Roller Games. We’re going to compete against Spain, Australia and Japan.”
For those interested in watching the Silicon Valley Roller Girls, they play their matches at City Beach in Santa Clara. Their schedule has two more home doubleheaders remaining, Saturday, September 23 and Saturday, October 21. The matches start at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., children age 5 and under get free admission, while tickets for kids 6-12 are $8 and general admission is $15.
“It’s super fun, you can hit a [girl] down and people congratulate you for it and tell you what a great job you did,” chuckled Mess. “It’s so rewarding, I love it.”