‘Incredibly disappointing’ finish for Webster’s team

 (By Allen Cameron, Calgary Herald)

It wasn’t just that Crystal Webster lost Sunday morning’s semifinal at the Scotties Alberta women’s curling championship.

It was the way she lost, 6-5 in an extra end to Edmonton’s Heather Nedohin, that will haunt Webster, third Erin Carmody, second Geri-Lynn Ramsay and lead Sam Preston for a few weeks, at the very least.

Webster’s team, the third seed heading into the provincials at the Leduc Recreation Centre, played a near perfect game for nine ends. After Nedohin was light on a draw for two in the ninth end, Webster took a 5-4 lead and the hammer into the 10th end – a situation no skip on the planet would turn down.

In the 10th, Webster had an out-turn draw to bite the four-foot for the victory – except, as she watched in desperation, the rock refused to curl. It had the right weight but hung outside, and Nedohin won a measure for the tying point to force an extra end.

And in the 11th, disaster struck, repeatedly. All four Webster players had misses, Nedohin’s team didn’t have any, and Webster was left only with an in-turn draw to bite a piece of the button to win; she was well short, and her dreams for a provincial title came to a crushing end.

“Absolutely; it’s just so incredibly disappointing after we played such a solid game,” said an emotional Webster. “We obviously felt like we were in control the whole game; the first time we were losing wasn’t until the end of the game, which is disappointing. It’s a bit heartbreaking.

“And we had the opportunity in 10 to shut it down, too. It almost looked like it fell a little bit halfway down the sheet. I guess I might have thrown it that way but it certainly ran straighter than we expected.”

Webster’s first-year team – Carmody and Ramsay moved from P.E.I. in the off-season to join forces with Webster and Preston – did well enough on the World Curling Tour during the fall to sit seventh on the Canadian Team Ranking System, but they won’t qualify for the season-ending Players’ Championships in April in Summerside, P.E.I.