For the second year in a row Alberta’s U18 curling champions have a Foothills feel.
Foothills County’s Emily Kiist and Team Jones repeated its Alberta Optimist U18 Women’s Championship while Okotoks’ Garrett Johnston and Team Kurina claimed the U18 provincial boys title in its championship debut on March 1 at the Sexsmith Curling Club.
“For us, I think our experience had a lot to do with it,” said Kiist, the lead for Team Jones. “We came into the week hoping for good games and close matches against good opponents and we definitely got that. The competition was tough as always.
“But we came together as a team and found our strengths and really drew upon those strengths to put together some solid playoff games.”
For Kiist, skip Olivia Jones and second Micayla Kooistra it was a repeat championship at the U18 level with third Mercedes Smith joining the team for the 2019-20 season. The team’s skip at the U21 level Jessica Wytrychowski was too old for the U18 level, with the curlers balancing a busy workload in U18 and U21.
After finishing third in round-robin with a 5-2 record, Team Jones got past its Airdrie Curling Club peers Team Cinnamon by a 5-1 count in the provincial final.
“We do know Cinnamon quite well. We practice beside them and we’re quite good friends,” Kiist said. “It’s never fun beating your friends, but I think what came into play was just our experience playing in provincial finals and winning the provincial final last year.
“We just knew that to come out on top we needed to stay relaxed and play it like any other game.”
The game was decided in the final two ends as Team Jones picked up a pair of two-enders in the seventh and eighth to turn the 1-1 contest into the 5-1 result.
“It was much closer than the scoreboard looked,” Kiist said. “It was a very tough game and they put up an awesome fight.”
Team Molnar, which featured Okotoks’ Chloe Johnston and Black Diamond’s Macey Anderson at second and lead, finished just outside of the playoff picture with a 3-4 record in Sexsmith. Team Jacques, with Turner Valley’s Sydney Libbus throwing second stones, earned a 2-5 finish.
While experience told the tale in the women’s final, first-time provincial qualifiers reigned supreme on the boys side.
Team Kurina, with skip Kyler Kurina, third Evan Crough, Garrett Johnston at second and Zachary Duncan at lead, made it a golden debut at the U18 provincials by knocking off the hometown favourite Team Sonnenberg 6-5 in the final.
“It was a long weekend, we battled hard all the way through it,” said Johnston, a Grade 12 student at Foothills Composite. “We had lots of up and downs, but we pulled through and played really good in our very last game and we just took it home.”
Team Kurina finished 5-2 in round-robin and used its first match-up against Sonnenberg to get ready for a final it has been preparing for all season.
“As soon as we got there it was crowded because it was all Grande Prairie, all the relatives of Sonnenberg, they were all there – we had to park two blocks away because it was so crowded,” Johnston said. “We were pretty nervous going into it, but we persevered and pushed through it and our coach told us to just have fun.”
In the final, a single in the eighth end was the difference between first and second.
“We were coming home tied, they scored two in the seventh and we tried to keep it clean so we could have a free draw to the centre, to the pin, for the win,” Johnston said. “It came down to skips first rocks and he kind of flashed his first rock, then we put another one on the four-foot and (Sonnenberg) had to make an even tougher shot to sit one.
“He hit and rolled out and that’s how we won.”
With the team featuring players from Okotoks, Calgary and Lethbridge they’ve made the most of their opportunities to collectively train together.
There was always one goal in mind.
“We just practised all year for that one game,” Johnston said. “Because we knew we would have to play (Sonnenberg) in the finals.”
One of Team Kurina’s two losses in Sexsmith came to the Okotoks Curling Club’s Team Ballance.
Skip James Ballance and his squad finished with a 4-3 record in round-robin and just missed out on the championship round after a 4-3 tiebreaker loss to the Josh Kroker rink.
Both the male and female Team Alberta squads are through to the U18 Canadian Curling Championships held April 21-26 in Sudbury, Ontario.
“We will be putting the final touches and keeping practicing as well as preparing for our trip to Sweden,” said Kiist, who competed at the 2019 national event. “All of the experience is good experience so I think we can draw upon our ability to play against these teams that are the best in the country and just know that everyone is a worthy opponent and you gain experience from each game whether you win or lose.”
