City Of Fists Liked Ophelia, in purple, avoids a block from Bone City’s Goldy Blox during Saturday night’s roller derby bout. (Photos by Mike Deak)

WARSAW – There really was no stopping #1217 Saturday night.

Liked Ophelia had the marked number on her back, her arms and on a couple fan’s shirts. That didn’t help Bone City from stopping the speedy jammer from racking up a ton of points in Kokomo City Of Fists’ 170-127 roller derby win at the Boneyard.

When The Fists needed points, Ophelia was more than up for the challenge. On four separate occasions in the bout, Ophelia scored ten or more points. At a point in the second half when the bout seemed to be shifting back to Bone City, Ophelia dropped a 20 on the Rollers, tip-toeing and smiling all along the way. With jams of 20, 20, 12 and 19 all accomplished, Ophelia was easily the skater of the bout in scoring 109 of Kokomo’s points, 66 of which came in the second half.

“I just got lucky on a lot of occasions and do what the coach wants me to do,” said Ophelia, brushing off accolades to her coach and blockers. “I saw a lot of holes and was able to get through them. These girls (Bone City) know how I skate, so I had to find the gaps when they were there and stay away from their blockers as much as possible.”

Ophelia’s second 20-pointer of the second half what was just a score of 133-106, Bone City having rallied from 42 down and had the jammer it wanted on the floor in Slender Side Pocket. But the 20-0 jam broke open the bout for the final time.

Kokomo, which has seen Bone City on numerous occasions the past couple years, brought a very aggressive approach to the bout Saturday night. Tough as nails blocking from Boggs, Confetti Punch and Rita Roundhouse all sent Rollers hurtling to the floor, Boggs with one of the biggest hits on the night sending Unraveled Kaos completely out of the track.

The physical approach seemed to catch Bone City somewhat offguard, scoring just nine points in its first eight jam attempts.

“It was tough for us to get going. They had a three-man wall and then sent in someone for offense, usually Ophelia, and that made it hard for us to go on offense,” said Bone City’s AK Rolling 7. “It made it really hard for us to reengage and then that made for a lot of hitting. And then our wall goes down and now it’s tough for us to hit back. Just a tough scenario for us tonight. We know a lot of their skaters and their tendencies, and we want to attack them. We just didn’t get the opportunities like we wanted.”

Added Kaos, “We knew going into it, they were going to be a very fast skating, hard hitting team. When you are face to face with that jammer, you don’t back down. Sometimes that’s easier said then done. I hold my ground, and tonight I end up flat on my back.”

Side Pocket would lead Bone City with 63 points and B-Squared would add 29 points.

“I was just trying to focus on myself and trying to get through and trying to fight through the blockers,” noted B-Squared. “I try to not worry about the other jammers and try to find my own hole. That’s how I prefer to jam. After a couple jams, I got more aggressive. I knew they were going to block hard, so I had to keep fighting to push through. I knew they had a tripod set up, I just had to fight through their blocks.”

The loss brings the 2017 competition season to an end for Bone City. The team will head into the offseason on the mend and in recruitment, looking for new skaters and new opportunities for 2018.

“We go on break and take off until January. We’ll be looking for some new faces and looking forward to boot camp.”