After losing the last two provincial finals, Team Silvernagle finally has the green jackets in their grasp.
The team won the 2019 Viterra Scotties Women's Provincials, defeating Team Anderson 6-5.
Robyn Silvernagle, the team’s skip, said winning the provincials has been a dream of hers since she was little.
“It's been a long time and then losing the last two finals has been absolutely heartbreaking, but you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so we just kept chugging along.”
Winning was also a long-time dream for Kara Thevenot, the team’s lead.
“It's phenomenal. It's what we've been working so hard for,” she said.
The Birch Hills-raised lead said after last year’s loss in Melfort, they recruited Stefanie Lawton, who’s won four provincial titles. Lawton said it meant a lot to win again.
“These girls played incredible and I'm so proud to be a part of this team and be playing with these women.”
They also added Jessie Hunkin, who spared for the team last year and was brought on permanently.
“I played out of Alberta for all my life,” said Hunkin, who’s from Stony Plain, Alta. “Then these guys pick me up, took a chance on me. We've worked hard all season and we did it."
Thevenot said she knew this version of the team would win and they put in a lot of work to make it happen.
| LSFE | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Total | |
|
Team Silvernagle
|
* | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
|
Team Anderson
|
0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
The final was a tight game, with Team Silvernagle scoring one in the first end, Team Anderson scoring one in the second, Silvernagle scoring two in the third and Anderson scoring two in the fourth.
“It was a tough game out there,” Hunkin said. “It was really back and forth. It could have went either way at any given time.”
Team Silvernagle then broke the tie in the seventh end, followed by a deuce scored by Team Anderson in the eighth.
“We kind of lost control after they scored their deuce tonight, but we just stayed really patient,” Thevenot said. “You just know that if you can put pressure on the other team, you just might come out on top and that's exactly what happened.”
The team scored one in the ninth end – something they didn’t want to do as they would have to give up the final shot of the game to Team Anderson. Silvernagle said she told her team they’ve stolen the last end to win before and they could do it again against Team Anderson.
“My team just played so well. Maybe this wasn't our sharpest performance in this last game, but Anderson played so well, so we had to play better,” Silvernagle said. “We had an awesome 10th and got a few mistakes from them, so yeah, we really got fortunate.
Silvernagle said it’s not going to take that long for the team to start preparing for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Nova Scotia.
“It'll probably be a really quick transition,” she said. “We’ll be planning even tonight when we're going to be practicing and getting ready.”
Lawton had a few pieces of advice for the rest of her team as they go to the nationals for the first time.
“It's just to go out there, get ready, just enjoy the moment and enjoy the the whole atmosphere out there because it's a lot of fun playing at the Scotties. We know that we’re there to curl so we're going to play well and represent Saskatchewan very well.”
