WCURL | Voyageurs Off to Semis at U SPORTS Championships

On the final day of the round robin at the U SPORTS Curling Championships in Thunder Bay, the Voyageurs women's squad once again split their games, falling to Alberta in the afternoon before winning when it mattered, defeating St. Francis Xavier in the evening to book their playoff spot.

In the afternoon draw, Alberta started with hammer and quickly made the most of it, opening with a deuce.  The next two ends proved especially costly as the Voyageurs could not figure out the ice, giving up steals of 2 and 3 in the second and third before finally getting on the board with a single in the fourth.  Alberta would answer with a triple in the fifth and at the break, the Voyageurs found themselves in a 10-1 hole.  From there the teams traded points, finally shaking hands after the eighth end with the scoreboard reading 13-2 in favour of the Pandas.

The disappointment in the afternoon meant one thing for the evening draw against St. FX; a win would punch their ticket to the semi-finals.  The Voyageurs came out with a game plan and executed it wonderfully.  By keeping things simple, there were very few rocks in play, leading to blanks of the first two ends.  The third end provided the Voyageurs with their first opportunity at multiple points and they capitalized, grabbing two in the frame.

In the fourth end, Burns and company forced the X-Women to draw to the side of the button but the final stone slid through the house, giving the Voyageurs a steal of 2 to go up 4-0 after four ends.  Then it was back to keeping things clean as the Voyageurs were able to manufacture blanks in the fifth and sixth ends before St. FX finally got on the board in the seventh with a single.  After trading singles in the eighth and ninth ends, the squad from LU entered the tenth end up 5-2.  Once again, keeping things clean was the story of the end as St. FX ran out of rocks and the Voyageurs claimed their 4th victory of the Championship.

At 4-3, the Voyageurs finished tied with Dalhousie for second but lost out on the head-to-head tiebreaker to finish 3rd.  The final standings mean they will face those same Tigers in the morning draw at 9am with a spot in the championship game on the line.  Win or lose, the Voyageurs will play again at 2pm tomorrow, either in the gold or bronze medal game.

Follow @luvoyageurs on twitter for end-by-end updates throughout the day Wednesday.