Cornwall’s Donna Butler rink, and Charlottetown’s Suzanne Birt foursome split their opening games Thursday at the Sobeys Slam in New Glasgow Nova Scotia,
Butler, playing with Marie Molyneaux, Melissa Andrews, and Carolyn Coulson, doubled top-ranked Shannon Kleibrink of Calgary 6-3 in their opener, by stealing three points in the final end. Butler’s evening game, against Calgary’s Crystal Webster, also ended in a 6-3 score, this time in favour of the opposition, who scored three of their points in the first end. Butler now plays Carrie Lindner of St. Catharines Ontario, Friday at noon. Islanders may know Lindner from the 2001 Canadian Junior Championships, where she lost to eventual winner Suzanne Gaudet in the semi-finals.
Meanwhile Gaudet, now Suzanne Birt, and her rink, which includes Shelly Bradley, Leslie MacDougall, and Stefanie Clark, lost her opening game, 5-3 to Amber Holland of Regina in the morning draw, but won a cliffhanger over Janet McGhee of Ontario 7-6 in the afternoon, after McGhee picked up four points in the seventh end to come back from a 4-2 deficit, and Birt responded with a triple in the final end to pull out the one-point victory. Birt now plays at 8:30 am Friday against Mary Anne Arsenault of Halifax.
In other Thursday action, eight teams are sporting 2-0 records, and have put themselves into excellent position to earn one of the quarter-final spots for Sunday morning. At 2-0 are: Heather Strong of Newfoundland/Labrador, Mary Anne Arsenault of Halifax, Alison Goring of Ontario, Stefanie Lawton of Sask., Crystal Webster of Calgary, Bingyu Wang of China, Cheryl Bernard of Calgary, and Sherry Middaugh of Ont.
In Draw 1, Heather Strong hit and rolled out in the eighth, blanking the end and sending it to an extra, but was then able to take advantage of the hammer to defeat Patti Lank 5-4. Lank’s fellow American rink, Aileen Sormunen also lost 8-2 in five ends to former World Champion Kelly Scott’s rink, being skipped this week by Colleen Jones.
Defending champion Sherry Middaugh assured herself a different path this year, with a convincing 9-2 victory over Sylvie Robichaud. In the 2007 Slam, Middaugh lost her first two before rattling off 7 straight must-win victories to claim the inaugural championship.
In draw 3, there was a battle of Nova Scotia teams, which saw Mary Anne Arsenault come out on top of a 6-3 decision with Jill Mouzar. An all Saskatchewan battle between Stephanie Lawton and Amber Holland ended 9-3 in favor of Lawton. And an all-Alberta match-up between Cathy King and Heather Rankin ended with Rankin scoring 2 in the eighth to win 7-5.
In draw 4, there was a very interesting match between Andrea Kelly and Bingyu Wang. After blanking the first three ends, Kelly was able to take 2 in the fourth, followed by Wang scoring 1 in the fifth and stealing 1 in the sixth. The seventh end saw multiple rocks sitting around the button, before Kelly was forced to take one. Wang scored a deuce in eight to get the victory.
Another all-Alberta matchup in the ‘B’ event saw Shannon Kleibrink and Renee Sonnenberg blank four of the first five ends before lots of rocks came into play in the sixth. Shannon Kleibrink took 2 in the sixth to take a 2-1 lead. Sonnenberg answered with a deuce of her own in seven to go up 3-2 coming home. A couple of unfortunate misses by the Kleibrink team set up a steal of 2 by Sonnenberg, to give her the 5-3 victory.