BY SARA KEDDY
Kings County Register
Their best game at the Little Rocks provincials was their win in the semi-final; if had been their last game, they’d be the Nova Scotian champions.
A junior team of curlers from the Berwick Curling Club - Jennifer Smith, skip; Karlee Burgess, lead; Kaitlyn Mason, second; and Reagan Lonergan, third - beat a Mayflower rink with two stolen points in the last end to get to the A final of the championships, held March 14 through 16 at CFB Halifax.
The girls - two nine-year-olds, a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old - went 4-0 through a round robin of 36 teams playing four-end games. They qualified for the semi-final in a bye, thanks to a shootout record.
In the final, junior club coach Craig Burgess says his club’s team “could have beaten” rivals from Liverpool: “They ran out of gas, they were just tired.”
The Liverpool team won 5-4 on the last rock in six ends.
“They were twice the size of our girls, all 11 and 12 years old,” Burgess says. “The girls kept up and handled themselves well. Their etiquette on the ice was class A.”
This was the Smith’s first year playing together; only two of the girls had played a season before.
Also at the event was a mixed team: skip Devon MacDonald, third Brooke Godsland, second Hannah Brush and lead Keefe Reeves. They went 1-3 through their pool and lost in the forth division semi-final to a CFB Halifax team.
Burgess says the Berwick club could have sent a third team, but with 60-plus juniors (to 21 years old) recruited in just the past couple of years, competitive strength for a tournament this size is a bit green.
“We have potential - two of the girls’ team have three years ahead of them in Little Rocks, and we can mix and match from the kids ready for junior competition next year even more.”
The club also certified 10 new coaches this season.
“We’ve had a very successful year.”
Little Rocks players are under 12 years old, throwing half-weight stones (20 pounds) in fewer ended games.
