By Dan Plouffe
The standings show the local Ava Acres and Dominique Vivier rinks at the head of their pools, but it hasn’t been an easy climb to the top by any means for the teams from the RCMP and Ottawa Hunt clubs at the Canadian Under-18 Curling Championships.
The round-robin portion of the competition wrapped up this afternoon at the RA Centre and Ottawa Hunt Club, with 5-1 Team Acres and 6-0 Team Vivier earning direct berths into tomorrow’s quarter-final round.
With their pool already clinched, Acres lost for the first time this afternoon, falling 6-5 to New Brunswick #1 despite holding a 5-3 lead with two ends to play.
It was a turn of the tables from the previous day when Acres pulled off a bigger comeback from a 4-0 hole at the break between the fourth and fifth ends.
“They had us on our heels,” reports Team Acres coach Gord Butler, whose rink gave up three consecutive steals before scoring three in the fifth end, stealing one in the sixth and counting three more in the eighth for a 7-5 win.
“But we’re a very resilient team. We don’t get down when we’re down on the scoreboard.”
Alongside Mya Sharpe, Isabella McLean and Aila Thompson, Acres erased a 4-1 deficit at the break earlier in the tournament to win 5-4 against Alberta. They also posted wins over Northern Ontario (9-1), Northwest Territories (8-4) and Saskatchewan (5-4).
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“Especially at the U18 level, there are lots of sways in momentum during the game. You really don’t want to ride the wave and be up when you’re up and down when you’re down,” Butler underlines. “I’ve tried to get the ladies to understand that it’s a process, it’s eight ends, and it doesn’t matter what the score is until the eighth is posted. So they’re very good at kind of assessing where they are, and then just getting down to work.”
Butler says his players’ ability to stay cool under fire is the product of excellent mental performance training and past learnings. He adds that pulling out tough matches early on in the tournament can indeed be helpful for potentially tight playoff games, but it’s more the sum of their experience that’s showing through.
“These girls have been together for three years and they’ve gone through those games. They honestly believe they can come back, and that’s half the battle,” Butler underlines. “I think the reality is that every team here is good. There’s a reason they’re at the Canadian national championships, so every game is going to be a battle.”
Team Vivier has survived several close battles as well to earn their unblemished record. With Sydney Anderson, Toula Pappas and Brooklyn Ideson, Vivier won two of her first three matches in extra ends over Prince Edward Island (7-5) and Alberta #2 (5-4), along with more comfortable victories over Northern Ontario #2 (9-2), British Columbia (8-2), Yukon (16-0) and Quebec #2 (6-4).
The local rinks will both face winners of tonight’s preliminary playoff games in Friday’s 12:30 p.m. quarter-finals. The women’s semi-finals will be held at the RA Centre Friday night at 8:30 p.m., with medal matches set for 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
The Owen Nicholls Rideau Curling Club rink pulled off a critical 5-4 win over Quebec this morning to clinch the final playoff spot in their group. Nicholls finished the round robin with a 3-3 record and will now face Alberta later today at 4:30 p.m. for a spot in the quarter-finals. The men’s medal matches will also take place on Saturday, at 12:30 p.m.
The full tournament draw can be found via Curling Canada’s scoreboard webpage.
