TUESDAY, March 19, 2013
www.kamloopsthisweek.com
A17
INSIDE X Minor hockey’s Night of Champions/A18 KAMLOOPS
THIS WEEK
SPORTS
Sports: Marty Hastings sports@kamloopsthisweek.com Ph: 250-374-7467 Ext: 235, Twitter: @MarTheReporter, @KTWonBlazers
Pack primed for nationals
Vibe retain B.C. crown With a 5-1 win over Richmond in the championship final, the female senior A Kamloops Vibe won their third straight B.C. championship in Logan Lake on Sunday, March 17. Kamloops will represent the province at the Western Canadian Championships, which get underway in Surrey on April 4. The River City squad won Westerns last year, after winning bronze in 2011 and
silver in 2010. Scoring for the Vibe on the weekend were Alyssa Reid (3G, 7A), Emily Edmundson (3G, 2A), Sarah Kurzac (1G, 3A), Rochelle Smith (2G, 1A), Bianca Mirabelli (1G, 2A), Jenna Ormondy (2G), Desiree Blair (1G), Aaren Ritchie-Bonar (1G), Gaylene Smith (1A) and Kayla Keeping (1A). Alissa Hibbert and Ashley Fisher split goaltending duties.
KMHA provincial paths
Tiffany Krausher and the TRU WolfPack are ready for the CIS/Canadian Curling Association Curling Championships. George Wycherley/KTW
By Marty Hastings STAF F REPORTER sports@kamloopsthisweek.com
T
HE TRU WOLFPACK will be underdogs at the 2013 CIS/Canadian Curling Association Championships, but it’s a title that might work to their advantage. “They better be ready for us,” TRU women’s coach Brenda Nordin said of the competition. “They might think [we’re walkovers], but we are not.” The tournament gets underway at the Kamloops Curling Club (KCC) on Wednesday, March 20, and runs through Sunday, March 24. There will be two WolfPack teams in action — Tiffany Krausher, Alyssa Kyllo, Ashley Nordin, Kym Edgeworth and Katie Hill make up the women’s team, with Darren Nelson, Russ Koffski, Jared Jenkins, Michael Hiram and
David Gore set to play on the men’s squad, coached by Ray Olsen. Both rinks have been preparing for nationals since September, playing in KCC leagues and entering various bonspiels along the way. “It was nice to have known who was on the team prior to the season starting because it gave us a bit of time to plan,” said Krausher, who will skip the women’s team. “It’s definitely been a lot of work, but it’s totally been worth it.” Eight men’s and eight women’s teams will participate in a round-robin, with the first-place teams advancing to their respective finals, while the second- and thirdplace teams meet in semifinals. Competition will be fierce. The University of Manitoba women’s team, for example, will feature Ashley Howard, Olympic gold medallist Russ Howard’s
daughter, and Breanne Meakin, the daughter of Rob Meakin, a former world men’s curling champion and current coach of Jeff Stoughton’s Manitoba rink. Breanne already has a world junior championship silver medal under her belt and Ashley is a provincial junior champion. TRU’s women can take stock in their performance at the Western playdowns, used to determine which teams would advance to nationals. The WolfPack women placed third, losing only to the first- and second-place teams, with one of those defeats coming against Manitoba. “We were in it to the last rock,” coach Nordin said. “I believe we can compete with anybody. The girls have worked so hard.” Nelson will skip the men’s team, which will be in tough competing against teams such as
the defending-champion Alberta Golden Bears, skipped again by Brendan Bottcher, who led his rink to victory last year at the Welland Curling Club in Ontario. The Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks, skipped by Laura Crocker, won the 2012 women’s title. The Hawks did not qualify for this year’s tournament. The semifinals get underway at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. The finals are slated for 2 p.m. on Sunday, with the winners earning the right to represent Canada at the 2014 Karuizawa Invitational in Karuizawa, Japan. Tickets are $20 for full-event passes or $5 per draw. Krausher said her rink is looking forward to the challenge. “We can handle it, for sure,” she said. “We’ve put a lot of work in.”
Round-robin slate X Wednesday — 10 a.m., TRU women vs. University of Prince Edward Island, TRU men vs. Acadia University of Nova Scotia; 3 p.m., TRU women vs. McMaster University of Ontario, TRU men vs. Trent University of Ontario. X Thursday — 2 p.m., TRU women vs. Guelph University of Ontario, TRU men vs. Carleton University of Ontario; 7 p.m., TRU women vs. University of Alberta, TRU men vs. University of Alberta. X Friday — 9 a.m., TRU women vs. St. Mary’s of Nova Scotia, TRU men vs. Dalhousie University of Nova Scotia; 2 p.m., TRU women vs. University of Manitoba, TRU men vs. University of Manitoba. X Saturday — TRU women vs. University of Western Ontario, TRU men vs. University of Waterloo.
The Kamloops Jardine’s Blazers opened with a 9-1 win over Victoria at the B.C. Bantam Tier 1 championship in Duncan on Sunday, March 17. Blazers’ captain Dario Piva had a goal and four assists and Alexander Buchanan pitched in with a pair of goals. In its second tilt of the four-game roundrobin, Kamloops lost 7-1 to Burnaby Winter Club on Monday, March 18. The Blazers will play Cowichan Valley today (March 19) and wrap the roundrobin against North Shore Winter Club on Wednesday, March 20. Log on to kamloopsthisweek.com for the result. The top two teams after round-robin play will meet in the final on Wednesday night. Meanwhile, the peewee tier 3 North Kamloops Lions also were 1-0 after their first game at provincials in Creston, doubling Terrace 4-2. The top two teams from each division — the Lions are in a five-team division, the other side has six teams — will advance to Thursday’s (March
21) semifinals, with the final slated for Friday, March 22. Kerry Park of Mill Bay, Arbutus of Vancouver and Cranbrook round out the Lions’ division. Kamloops’ bantam female squad was 0-1 after its first roundrobin tilt at provincials in Vernon, losing 11-1 to North Shore. Allison Borrow scored the Mystix’s lone goal. Terrace and Kamloops played on Monday. Log on to KTW’s website for the result. The Mystix finish the round-robin today with a matchup against Cranbrook. The top two teams from each division at the nine-team tournament advance to the semifinal round, to be held on Wednesday, along with the final. Also in provincial championship action are the peewee tier 1 Kamloops Jardine’s Blazers. The Blazers are in Vancouver, where round-robin games against Prince George, Burnaby, Vancouver and North Shore will determine whether they make the final, which will be played on Thursday.