The past two weekends have been good ones for 18 year old UPEI student and Cornwall Curling Club member Veronica Smith. Last weekend, she skipped her rink to a 9-5 win over Cornwall clubmate Amanda MacLean and her team to win the final of the Pepsi Provincial Junior Women’s Curling Championship, and a trip to the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors, February 2-10, in Fort McMurray Alberta.
Curl Atlantic photo
This weekend, she teamed up with three members of last weekend’s runner-up MacLean rink – Jane DiCarlo, playing third, second Emily Gray, and lead Aleya Quilty to represent UPEI at the Atlantic University Women’s Curling Championship at the CFB Halifax Curling Club, and captured one of the two spots in the CIS Championship, in Kamloops BC March 20 -24. Her rink, coached by Paul Smith, lost their opener 7-5 to Acadia, but won their next two in the double-knockout event, 7-6 in an extra end over Dal, and 6-4 over Acadia to advance to this morning’s B final over defending champion Memorial University, skipped by Carolyn Suley.
In this morning’s game, Team UPEI grabbed an early lead, taking a triple with hammer in the first end, and stealing a single in the second. The teams traded singles to give Smith a 5-1 lead at half-time in the eight-end contest. Smith stole one in five, the teams swapped singles in six and seven, and Smith ran Suley out of rocks in the eighth end for a 7-2 final score and a trip to the nationals.
Atlantic Canada’s other women’s representatives at the CIS Championship will be the Sara Spafford rink from Saint Mary’s, which includes Seven Mile Bay PEI native Anita Casey. They won the A division on Saturday afternoon with a 7-4 victory over Suley. Other members of the Spafford rink are Amanda Colter and MacKenzie Proctor, with coach Marie Christianson.
Six teams, from Dalhousie, Acadia, St. FX, UPEI, Saint Mary’s, and Memorial took part in the Atlantic University Women’s Championship.
The Atlantic University Men’s Championship will take place January 25-26, also at the CFB Halifax club, with four teams entered, from Saint Mary’s, Dalhousie, Memorial, and Acadia. The defending champions, the Brett Gallant rink from UPEI are not back this year. The A and B winners from that event will also advance to the CIS Championships, in Kamloops BC March 20 -24.
Linescores from both Atlantic championships are available at LiveCurling.com