Awesome, like the Sofa King

FoCo v. Slaughterhouse - Some Notes

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:26:00 -0800

As a geek, my brain is tuned to pattern match on problems and bottlenecks, and devise ways to fix them. As a derby girl, my wife (The Original Skankster) is always thinking about ways to be a better derby girl. Watching her do this makes me happy. Occasionally, this thinking borderlines on yak shaving (and sometimes it's the very essence). After consuming my fair share of roller derby, I've come to the conclusion that there are only two places that Skank (and other derby girls on her team) should improve on (for the time being): (a) Staying out of the penalty box, and (b) play at 100% even in the last 15 minutes.

I've said this so much that I devised a shorthand method for keeping track of some numbers that I thought might prove my point. It's important to point out that I can not, in good conscience, call these numbers statistics or metrics. If you want to know why, go read Freakonomics (or, rephrased, if you'd like to have no friends, go read Freakonomics). The sampling size is far too small (only a single bout), but my gut tells me that if I continued collecting data and analyzed it in a long term, I'd see similar results.

Here's some interesting numbers with my anecdotal interpretation:

After the first half, the score was 46-80 for SDG. FoCo had given up 50 points while at least one player was in the penalty box, and 29 of those points were when the FoCo jammer was being penalized (meaning we couldn't score). SDG gave up 27 points from penalties, and 15 of them were during the jammer being penalized.
The final score was 166-134 for FoCo. The second half found 43 points given up by FoCo while down players, with 20 of them being given up while the jammer was in the box. SDG gave up a whopping 118 points from penalties, 67 of them while the jammer was in the penalty box.
Between both teams, only 8% of penalties did NOT result in points being given up.
In the last 16 minutes of the bout, SDG had 3 people in the penalty box at a time for almost 10 minutes of it.

I take two things away from this, and they're more data driven than my anecdotes I mentioned previously. The first is that the attitude about penalties needs to change, because there seems to be a connection between penalties and the other team scoring (although how much of a connection is still unclear). Obviously, points still get scored whether you're down players or at full strength. More data is needed before one can really see the actual impact of penalties to points.

Sidenote: The officiating last night was less than stellar (of this the Greeley fans and I agree). Still, that doesn't excuse any penalties. Referees provide a certain level entropy to a bout. You have to tune your play to each different set of referees. [Obligatory Remember the Titans reference]

The other isn't quite as clear in the stats, but requires some context from the game. SDG was noticably tired at the 15 minutes into the second half (when the tide started turning). I read a book a few years ago about coaching football, and it had a chapter all about practicing under fatigue. The thinking here is that if you practice under fatigue and get perfect, it's instinct. As SDG got tired, they got slower, and particularly, sloppier, resulting in penalties. This was unexpected, and I hadn't really accounted for that. I had never connected final-15 play with penalties, but at least in this case, fatigue seems to have affected that.

And some other notes that I jotted down, while I had a pen and paper handy:

SDG had execution down pat in the first half. They had noticable formations and plays. I have never seen Rox get shut down so thoroughly as the trap they set 10 minutes into the first half, and from the looks on the faces of the FoCo pack at the time, neither had they. SDG's jammer blew threw without much resistance (causing me to exclaim "Push 'em, pull 'em, do somethin'!"). They had practiced those plays over and over, and it showed.
When Milf plays against teams that don't know her as well, I giggle that they give her a wide berth. She is strong black woman and she carries herself as if she owns the place (I saw her at Whole Foods one time and observed similar behavior). They are literally afraid of her (as they probably should be). Last night, however, her hits were not necessarily overly hard, but they were smart, and they were directed. I marked at least 6 hits she made that either closed holes from the opposing jammer or opened a whole for her own jammer (one specific case where Raven retained her velocity through the pack because of Milf's hit).
Miss Eerie is probably 110 pounds soaking wet. She doesn't do much in the way of sending ladies flying. Last night though, you could have called her "Make Ya Miss" Eerie Business. Two very committed hits directed right at her resulted SDG girls hitting their own teammates because of Miss Eerie's juking.

When I started writing this (it took me a few hours, since I kept going back and reviewing the numbers), Princess of Wails had sent me a Facebook message asking whether FoCo won or whether SDG lost or a bit of both. Last night, on the way to the after party, I indicated to Skank that I thought the latter. After looking at my notes though, it's a bit of both. SDG became a different team when it mattered. If they had stayed consistent, they probably would have gone home with that NoCo. FoCo tightened up and stopped the penalties, and then capitalized with their fastest jammers when SDG had three players in the box (one being the jammer). FoCo went home with a well deserved win.

Update (2348 5 Feb): I did something very uncharacteristic of me, and I'm not entirely sure why. I did something very unconstructive and I named names while I was doing it. There is no excuse for that. I am wrong. Heartfelt apologies will go to the parties which I've affected. I have no affiliation with FoCo Girls Gone Derby other than I'm a season ticket holder. The douchebaggery is my own cross to bear. Please don't harbor any ill will towards those ladies.

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