Alberta Scotties continues at MH Curling Club
It may not have gone exactly how she drew it up, but Chelsea Carey’s rink was the first to qualify at the 2018 Alberta Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
After winning her first two matches of the tournament, Carey came into Thursday’s match against Val Sweeting with the goal of keeping her record undefeated — and that’s exactly what she did, beating Sweeting’s rink 7-5 in 10 ends.
“We started off pretty strong, but we fumbled it a bit there in the middle,” said Carey. “We managed to get out of Dodge without too much damage. You know the games are going to be a battle, so we never wanted to take our foot off the gas and we were able to come out with a win.”
With three wins and a lot of curling to play, Carey says she is happy with her team’s performance through the early stages of this year’s tournament.
“I think we’ve been getting better and better,” she said. “There’s still some room to continue on upwards, and that’s what we’ll look to do, and we’ll keep trying to bring it for the playoffs.”
Carey’s rink got up to a 2-0 lead in the second end, and was up 4-1 at the end of the fourth, but Sweeting’s team took points in sixth, eighth and 10th ends to keep the game close.
“We expect them (Sweeting) to play very well, and we expect to have to play really well to keep ourselves in it,” said Carey. “We got a couple breaks early, and then we were able to hold on to that lead.”
Carey says the team will practise and get some rest Friday before playing in Saturday’s bracket.
Sweeting beat Scheidegger early in the day, while Carey beat Kleibrink to meet in their qualifier match.
DeJong beat Sherrer 9-2, Kleibrink took down Scotland and Scheidegger’s rink took down Crocker’s in the 6:30 p.m. games.
The Scotties Tournament of Hearts continues with C Event action in the sixth draw this morning at 9 a.m. Team Craigie will play Team Crocker on Sheet A, Team Marthaller will face Team Scotland on Sheet B and Team Ramsay will meet up with Team Hunkin on Sheet C.
The B Event semifinals are slated for the 2 p.m. seventh draw, with Casey Scheidegger’s team taking on defending champion Shannon Kleibrink on Sheet A and Val Sweeting facing Delia DeJong on Sheet B. The winners will advance to the B Event final in the eighth draw at 6:30 p.m. with the second qualifying spot up for grabs.
The eighth draw will also feature three C Event games, with matchups to be determined in the sixth draw.
The final two qualifying spots will be up for grabs in Saturday’s C Event final at 1 p.m.
The top two qualifiers will meet up Saturday at 6:30 p.m., with the winner advancing to the championship and the loser falling into the second semifinal on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.The third and fourth qualifiers will also play Saturday at 6:30 p.m. The winner will advance to the second semifinal.
The championship draw is set for Sunday at 4:30 p.m.