McCarville roars to trials berth
Northern Ontario skip claims one of two tickets to Olympics qualifier, while Vernon’s Morris remains alive
After six days of playing some pretty inspired curling, Krista McCarville has achieved her No. 1 objective. Now on to the next test.
McCarville, of Thunder Bay, Ont., defeated Winnipeg’s Briane Meilleur 7-5 in the A-side final at the 2017 Home Hardware Road to the Roar curling pre-trials in Summerside, P.E.I., grabbing one of two tickets into next month’s Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings Olympics qualifying competition.
“We’re so excited,” McCarville told assembled media.
“To come out here and to play well with this great field, it feels really good to get the first spot and to be going to those trials.”
The McCarville foursome, which finished 4-2 in the round robin, includes third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala and lead Sarah Potts.
“I said to the girls it’s like a Scotties,” said McCarville, who finished 6-4 at the 2009 Roar of the Rings, “a beautiful arena with the atmosphere, the great ice, it’s basically like a Scotties. The only thing is it’s more laid back; a couple of days we only had one game, where at the Scotties you always have two. It’s a national competition you want to win.”
McCarville notched two in the eighth end to give her a 6-3 advantage. Meilleur got two of those back in the ninth, but with the hammer to McCarville, Meilleur had to do some stunning things in order to steal and did not.
“We always go into the eighth end, if we have hammer, we always say we have to score at least one in that circumstance; to get more than one I think is a bonus and we got two, so even better,” the victorious 35-yearold skip explained.
“It was a really good game. We have a strategy that we’re liking; it’s more of an open game plan, but I feel that’s what’s been working for our team this year. It was a tough battle. Luckily we were getting twos and holding them to ones a couple of the ends and it seemed to go our way.”
As thrilled as she was with the outcome, McCarville did admit this event isn’t the end all or be all for her rink.
“We don’t ever base our whole year saying the Olympics,” she pointed out. “We’re here and we’re excited, we would never give any less because it’s Olympics, but just because we don’t get to travel as much as the other teams, we’ve always said it’s not our No. 1 goal. Our No. 1 goal is the Scotties, but to be here and get that extra competition I think is what we want and what we need to do something.”
Meilleur, whose rink features third Breanne Knapp, second Janelle Vachon and lead Sarah Neufeld, now drops to the B side and will await results early Sunday to see who their opponent will be.
In the B-side quarters on Saturday night, Calgary’s Nadine Scotland and Woodstock’s Julie Tippin squared off, Tippin taking a pair in the ninth to score a 7-3 triumph.
In the other quarter-final, Kelsey Rocque of Edmonton scored one in the 10th for a 6-3 victory over Sherry Middaugh of Coldwater, Ont. Tippin and Rocque now have a date in the B-side semi in the morning.
On the men’s side, Vernon’s John Morris and Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton will play in the A-side final on Sunday morning. The B-side final will go later in the day.
Bottcher got to that final by beating previously undefeated Glenn Howard of Tiny, Ont., 6-2; Morris, meanwhile, was a 4-2 winner over Edmonton’s Charley Thomas.
“We need to come out (Sunday) and just individually relax and play well,” Bottcher, who goes into his match as the decided underdog, told Curling Canada. “(Getting the berth) really doesn’t factor into the equation; we’re just trying to win a bonspiel right now.”
Howard went on to best Winnipeg’s Jason Gunnlaugson 5-2 in Saturday night’s B-side quarter-final, while Thomas was taking on Greg Balsdon of Kingston, Ont., and the winner was slated to meet Howard.