The Lauren Ferguson team from the Cornwall Curling Club are the Pepsi Provincial Junior Women’s Curling Champions, after an 8-3 win over their clubmates the Rachel MacLean foursome (all four teams entered were from Cornwall) Sunday afternoon in the first of two possible championship round games.
(File Photo L-R): Lauren Ferguson, Sydney Howatt, Kristie Rogers, Rachel O’Connor. Missing: coach Pat Quilty)
This is a repeat provincial title for Ferguson, who has a new team this year, with third Sydney Howatt, second Kristie Rogers, and lead Rachel O’Connor, along with coach Pat Quilty. The Ferguson foursome will join the Junior Men’s winners, the Tyler Smith squad from the Montague Curling Rink at the 2020 New Holland Canadian junior championships in Langley, BC from January 18-26. Other members of the Rachel MacLean finalist team are third Amy Spence, second Avery Nicholson, and lead Izzy Tatlock, with coach Carl Nicholson.
Ferguson won two of the event’s three sections and would have won the championship with a win in either of the two championship round games, but only needed the first. In this afternoon’s match, Ferguson, who won six of her seven games in the event, losing only to MacLean, opened with a single, and stole a deuce and two singles before letting MacLean on the board with a deuce, leading 5-2 heading into the fifth end break. MacLean stole a single in the sixth, but singles in the next three ends gave Ferguson an 8-3 lead and the game. On Sunday morning, Ferguson took the “C” final of the modified triple-knockout draw with a close 5-4 win over the Katie Shaw team.
Also on Sunday morning, the Tyler Smith team maintained their unbeaten record into the “C” final, where they defeated the Mitchell Schut rink from Cornwall by a 10-6 score. Because Smith won all three sections of the draw, the championship round was not needed.