Six rinks have punched their tickets to the Saskatchewan high school curling regional playdowns after clinching berth during the Battle West district playdowns at the Twin Rivers Curling Club Thursday.
Angus Reid and his North Battleford Comprehensive High School foursome were among those earning a spot to the regionals, which will take place in Saskatoon on March 4 and 5, after he won the boys’ ‘B’ event title.
“It was a pretty good couple of days,” Reid said. “It would have been nice to get a win against Spiritwood in the ‘A’ final, but it all worked out in the end and we’re going to Saskatoon.
“The biggest challenge was getting the draw weight down early in our games. Once we did that, we were able to capitalize on other teams mistakes to get a few points in each end.”
The Spiritwood rink that Reid was referring to captured the ‘A’ event title earlier in the day, thanks to some great shooting by skip Garrett Reddekopp,
“We have a pretty seasoned group here,” Reddekopp said. “We’ve been curling together for about three years now and we’ve been lucky enough to play in a few bonspiels this season.
“We kept things clean for the most part, and that was the key to our success. We have the juveniles coming up in St. Walburg in a couple of weeks, and that will be a nice tune-up for us before we go to Saskatoon.”
The girls’ competition was led by a pair of veteran rinks as Jolene Gruber’s squad from McLurg School in Wilkie and Cyane Sperle of Unity earned regional spots.
“We’re undefeated so far this year so we’re obviously pretty excited with how things have been going,” Gruber said. “We’ve been playing a simple game all season and we’re looking to keep that going through the rest of the year.”
“We had a few ups and downs over the course of the event but everyone was staying positive out there,” Sperle said. “We kept calm when things didn’t go our way and we were able to make some key shots as a result.”
The final two regional spots were clinched by Kerrobert’s Carter Murphy and Macklin’s Tanner Sieben in the mixed event.
“Everyone on the team has curled before but we never played with each other prior to this season,” Murphy said. “We just clicked right away and we haven’t looked back since.”
“This was the second year in a row that we made it to the ‘A’ final and lost, so maybe we’re a better ‘B’ event team,” Sieben joked. “Hopefully that changes in a couple of weeks in Saskatoon.”
The top two teams in each regional event will then advance to the provincial playdowns on March 10 and 11.
The boys’ event will take place in Assiniboia, while the girls and mixed competition will be held in Moose Jaw.
