CURL | Voyageurs Dominate Semi-Final, Will Face Brock for U SPORTS Gold
The Voyageurs women's curling team entered the fourth day at the U SPORTS Championships with their fate solely in their hands. With a single round robin game remaining, the team needed a win to clinch a berth in the semi-finals. The team standing in their way was the host UNB Reds, who were already eliminated from playoff contention but looking to go out on a high note.
Laurentian opened the scoring in the first end after a couple of great freezes from Megan Smith and Kira Brunton forced the Reds to draw for a single but their shot was heavy and the Voyageurs stole a single. After UNB scored a deuce in the 2nd, Brunton came up clutch in the 3rd, tapping back for a single against four Reds stones. Then the Voyageurs pounced, capitalizing on UNB mistakes for steals of 3 in the 4th and 2 in the 5th to head to the break with a 7-2 lead.
To their credit, UNB didn't pack it in. Instead, they came out firing and scored a deuce in 6 to cut the margin to 3. They then turned around and stole singles in the 7th and 8th ends, making it a 7-6 game heading into the ninth. The Voyageurs settled down in the ninth and Brunton had a shot for three but the rocks spilled a little to far and the women settled for a single before running the Reds out of rocks in the tenth for the 8-6 win and a trip to the semi-finals.
After everything played out, the Voyageurs, at 5-2, would enter Monday night play as the 4th seed and would come up against the top seeded 6-1 Dalhousie Tigers, a team they had beaten a day earlier for their only round robin loss. The game began very cautiously as neither team wanted to give up a big opening score. From there, the Voyageurs turned to a trick they had used many times before this week and that was stealing ends. It began in the second with the Tigers being too heavy on their draw and Laurentian scoring a deuce. After another steal of one and a Dalhousie single, Brunton converted a runback for 3 that gave the women a 6-1 lead heading to the break.
After blanking the sixth, Dalhousie couldn't get their hits to stick around, allowing the Voyageurs to steal singles again in the 7th and 8th ends. The Tigers did manage to put one more up on the board in the 9th but in the 10th, the Voyageurs simply ran them out of rocks and assured themselves of a U SPORTS medal with an 8-2 victory.
The team will decide the colour of that medal on Tuesday at 11:30am ET when they face off against the Brock Badgers. The championship game will also be the featured game of the day and will be aired live on cbcsports.ca.