The Vanier mixed curling team has gotten off to a perfect start at provincials.
They will now need to stay unbeaten to have a perfect ending.
The Vanier mixed rink of Stacey Light, Jonathon Wells, Kaitlin Corbin and Devon Schweiger went 3-0 Friday to win the A event at the SHSAA mixed provincial curling championships. They’re the first team to qualify for the semifinals at the eight-team tournament being held at the Moose Jaw Ford Curling Centre.
“We’ve been playing great and we’ve executed the shots we’ve needed to,” said Light.
Vanier beat Spiritwood 9-7 in the A final. They opened with a 6-5 win over Ituna and followed that with an 8-6 win over Debden.
They will meet the second C event qualifier in the semifinal at 2 p.m. today. The winner will advance to the final at 5 p.m. The playoffs are single-elimination, but that doesn’t bother the Vanier team.
“Our first goal to make the playoffs and our second goal was to make the gold medal final,” said Light. “(The semifinal) is just our next goal and we’re taking it one game at a time.”
Though Light calls the game and throws second stones, Corbin throws skip stones. Corbin made some great shots Friday to help her team stay unbeaten.
“She’s been playing really amazing,” said Light. “Kaitlin and I both made provincials last year. This year we knew we were both going to be playing mixed and neither one of us wanted to play front-end again. So we made the agreement that we would split the position so we would both play a key part on the team.
“It works out great for us. It might confuse some of the other teams at first, but it’s working for us.”
In Friday night’s A final, Vanier stole a pair in the second end to take a 4-0 lead, but Spiritwood struck back with three of their own to cut the lead to a point.
Corbin faced a tough shot with her final rock the fourth end, but she was able to get through a port and hit the shot stone and stick for three. Vanier’s 7-3 lead proved to be too much for Spiritwood to overcome.
While Vanier don’t earn an extra life for winning the A event, they do get to take some time off. After curling three games in a little over nine hours, they were looking forward to watching the other teams battle in Saturday’s two morning draws.
“We were hoping this would be our last game because we were getting tired,” said Light.
In the SHSAA boys provincial curling championships in Assiniboia, the hosts also won the A event. The Assiniboia rink beat Saskatoon Walter Murray 6-4 in the A final and also beat Saskatoon Holy Corss 6-4 and Montmartre 9-7.
