Two newly-formed rinks competing at their first bonspiel made it all the way to the A final in the first leg of the Ladies Triple Crown, with an Okotoks Curling Club rink settling for a second place finish.
Okotoks’ Lois Fast rink was edged 9-5 by Calgary’s June Campbell in the A final of the Oilfields Ladies Bonspiel, Jan. 8 in Black Diamond.
Fast, alongside third Sandra Stoutenburg, second Laura Padget and lead Marg Cox, took out Sherri Gussman’s Black Diamond rink and got past Heather Kuntz to set up a semifinal in the A event with a familiar opponent, defending Triple Crown champion Debbie Miller.
Fast and Cox, who are also the fifth and sixth for Team Miller, respectively, took out their sometimes teammates in the all-Okotoks semifinal on Jan. 7.
“It was kind of bittersweet,” said Fast of eliminating Miller. “They have a really good team and we were curling really well (Saturday).”
However, the Fast rink, in its first bonspiel as a collective unit, was unable to
sustain its sparkling form in the A final. Fast, a provincial curling champion for Manitoba in 1988, said being down after the fifth end forced them into an aggressive style they were unable to turn into points.
“We tried to get points and couldn’t get them,” she said. “I was drawing against five and our sweepers just took it a foot too far.”
Campbell, a veteran of three Scotts Tournament of Hearts, said her newly composed foursome started making pinpoint shots after the fourth end, when they began to make life difficult for their opponents.
“On the fifth end on my last rock I made a hit and a roll and we were sitting two and (Fast) had to draw almost to a piece of the button and that was when we were really starting to put pressure on them,” she said.
“We were fortunate to get a couple misses at the right time out of them and we just capitalized on those misses and I think that was the difference because up until then we were pretty equal in the shot making end of it.”
Campbell and her team are not participating in the Triple Crown as they were just using the Oilfields Bonspiel as a means to sharpen their game in advance of the senior curling circuit.
“Coming in we didn’t realize it was a Triple Crown (event) we just wanted to come out and play out here,” Campbell said. “For next year I think we’re going to take a look at it, playing in the three events, I think that’s a really great idea.”
Therefore, despite the second-place finish, Team Fast sits atop the Triple Crown ladies standings with 15 points to its name, tied with Oilfields’ Laurie McCreary-Burke, the B event winner, and Terri Loblaw’s rink based out of the Inglewood Curling Club in Calgary.
The Triple Crown circuit is made up of points garnered from three bonspiels, with wins from the Oilfields Bonspiel worth five points, victories at the Highwood Bonspiel worth 10 and wins from the final leg of the Triple Crown in Okotoks valued at 15 points.
The Okotoks rink will be back at it for the second leg of the Triple Crown series, Jan. 13-15 at the Highwood Curling Club in High River.
Fast said her team merely needs to improve its execution for High River.
“We just have to make our shots,” she said. “Just a couple shots in this (final) and it could have been different.”
