By Touretta Lynn

The second bout of the 2007 season for the Naptown Roller Girls’ Tornado Sirens brought Fort Wayne’s Bomb Squad to the Circle City on Feb. 3 for a history-making event: Two Indiana flat-track roller derby teams were going head to head in competition. The question at hand? The bout’s title: “Hoosier Valentine?”

And Indiana’s Valentine was decided with the seasoned Fort Wayne team coming out on top 122-57 against the newcomer Tornado Sirens in the Champions Pavilion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The weather hovered in the single digits outside, but the action inside heated up the pavilion, with more than 1,700 screaming spectators cheering on their Naptown Roller Girls anyway.

Wheels were spinning when Naptown’s Lethal Chrissy and Fort Wayne’s Pushycat took off as the evening’s first jammers, each putting points on the scoreboard. But the veteran Fort Wayne squad forged ahead adding points nearly every jam in each period, leaving Naptown to go down with a good fight under their belts and reason to train harder for their March 24 bout against the North Star Roller Girls.

High-scoring Naptown jammers for the first period included Mizz Understood and Jane Ire, both bringing in 7 points each. Lethal Chrissy, Joan of Dark and J. Roller all added 4 points each. Lethal Chrissy scored the most points for Naptown in the second period, bringing in 6 of the team’s points, and Joan of Dark led the team’s jammers in points in the third period with 9 points added to the scoreboard. On the blocking side of things, Naptown’s Sweet C had the most takedowns and Touretta Lynn matched C’s takedowns in assists. Despite Naptown’s low-point game, “Hoosier Valentine” brought fans to their feet several times because of the heated action on the track. Girls were skating, hitting and oftentimes flying into the crowd’s suicide seats, with a little help from the slippery “sport court” that the ladies were skating on, and the Tornado Sirens, despite the score and impending loss, gave it their all until the end.