Journey to a bronze medal
My name is Katelyn McGillivray and I am the skip for the Kelowna Secondary School girls curling team.
I have curled for six years but my team is made up of four other girls who had never curled until this past season, so I knew that we had some hard work ahead of us. Although we had some ups and downs, we always supported each other and stayed positive. This is what ultimately led to our success.
We were all so excited for our first big bonspiel together, but we weren’t quite sure what to expect.
After three hard-fought games against South Kamloops, North Kamloops, and George Elliot, we found ourselves in the final against Sahali. Our determination and great teamwork really showed in this last game and we battled hard and won 6-5. Anna (an exchange student from Belgium), who had curled spectacularly through the whole weekend, made an amazing hit and roll on her last rock. After I put up a guard, I didn’t even have to throw the last rock.
We could not believe that we had gone undefeated at playdowns but more importantly, we could not believe that we had qualified for B.C. high school curling provincials in the beautiful town of Smithers!
After we got many wonderful donations from local businesses and individuals, we set up a silent auction at the Kelowna curling rink to make enough money to get us to Smithers. After more practices and another bonspiel, we found ourselves on the road on February 28th.
We had a very exciting first game against Fraser Lake and claimed our first victory. After that came the opening ceremonies, then two more games that day. We ended up sitting at 2-1 the first day and we were very eager to return the next day. After another early morning on Day 2, we had two very good wins and one tough loss, putting us at 4-2. The third day, we had our last round-robin game against Ballenas from Parksville and, after Grace made a great tap back to the button, we won that game 6-5.
Although we lost our tie-breaking game to Riverside, we ended with a record of 5-3 to get the bronze medal!
The last KSS girls team to win a title in the provincial championships was back in 1987!
We were all so excited that all of our hard work had paid off and any obstacle we faced, we faced as a team. We never expected to get that far, let alone take home a medal our first year together!
We all became even closer after our victory because we had worked so hard and put in a lot of practice games for the chance to compete in provincials and all of it paid off in that moment when we got our bronze medals.
I am so proud and amazed at my team for never giving up and practicing their hearts out. The girls showed knowledge, and passion for the game that was astounding to me, considering they had only started this year. We couldn’t be happier with our result and even though we have lots more work to be done next year, we know that our team will be up for the challenge.