CANADIAN SWEEP
Burgess girls strike gold in Scotland
Team Canada didn’t let Sweden’s undefeated record intimidate them as they claimed the World Junior Women’s Curling championship with a 7-4 victory Saturday morning in Aberdeen, Scotland.
And with Tyler Tardi’s men’s team from Langley, B.C., claiming the men’s title with a 6-5 extra-end victory over Scotland, it marked Canada’s rst sweep of the gold medals at the event since 2015.
In the women’s nal, the Canadians were steady throughout, despite facing the defending world champion who had brought a 10-0 record into the gold medal game.
In fact, when Canada put three points up in the fth end to take a 5-2 lead, it marked the rst time Sweden had trailed by more than a point all week, in the 10-team event.
e Kaitlyn Jones-skipped team, which includes lead Lindsey Burgess of Truro, second Karlee Burgess of Hilden and third Kristin Clarke, edged China 9-7 in the semifinals Friday.
China claimed the bronze medal with an 11-5 win over Norway.
Canada’s alternate is Lauren Lenentine and their coach is Andrew Atherton. Jones was thrilled with the team’s performance.
“ is is indescribable, and I feel amazing right now,” she said following the win. “I know I put everything out there on the line today and came out on top and that’s just an incredible feeling.”
e turning point of the game came down to Jones’s nal shot of the fth end. She hit a perfect double to sit three and put Canada ahead 5-2. From there, the con dent Canadians wore their opponents down and stole one in the eighth to lead 7-3.
Holding Sweden to a point in the ninth left the Canadians coming home with a three-point lead and the hammer in the 10th and they methodically ran Sweden out of rocks. Karlee made a key shot in the ninth with her rst rock when she took out a guard and one in the house for a double.
“I’m super proud of my team,” Jones said. “We’ve worked so hard to get here and for me moving all the way across Canada to play with them, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.” Jones added their intention was to keep Sweden from gaining too much momentum.
“It’s a goal to force them to one and we got the end-goal that we wanted. Whenever they had the hammer we wanted to keep them close to one.”
The Tardi team was able to jump into a 5-2 lead through seven ends, but Scotland clawed back to tie it 5-5 with a stolen single in the 10th.
In the 11th, though, Tardi made a runback double takeout with his first delivery of the end, and then made a perfect draw to a Scottish stone at the back of the four-foot for the victory.