The Road to Red Deer: British Columbia Update

Kelly Scott will have the opportunity to win her third Scotties Tournament of Hearts after capturing the 2012 Scotties B.C. Women’s Curling Championship at Vancouver’s North Shore Winter Club on Sunday, January 29. Scott and her Kelowna Curling Club mates Dailene Sivertson, Sasha Carter and Jacquie Armstrong took the title with a last rock 6-5 victory over Marla Mallett’s Royal City team of Kelly Shimizu, Danielle Callens and Barbara Zbeetnoff. With the score tied at 5 after the ninth end, Mallett’s steal attempt came up short, and Scott drew the four-foot for the win.

Kelly Scott and her B.C. champions are on their way to the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts (Photo Michael Burns)

When round robin play concluded on Friday morning, seven of the ten teams which had started play four days earlier were still alive. Scott sat atop the standings with a 7-2 record, followed by Mallett and Victoria’s Roselyn Craig at 6-3. Four teams finished at 5-4, which meant that tie breakers were necessary to determine the Page playoff participants. Royal City’s Kelley Law survived tie breaker challenges from Richmond’s Marilou Richter and Prince George’s Jen Rusnell and then took advantage of a score of 3 in the fourth and a steal of 1 in the fifth in upsetting the Craig team, 7-5 in Saturday morning’s 3 vs. 4 Page playoff. Mallett had earlier won the page 1 vs. 2 game against Scott, when the latter was forced to throw all caution to the wind in attempting to steal a single in an extra end against the 2009 provincial champ. Tied at 5 apiece after regulation, Mallett scored another 5 in the eleventh for the 10-5 victory. With the win, Mallett secured her team’s place in the championship final while Scott would need to survive a semi final tilt with the hard-charging Law contingent. In that Saturday night match, Scott scored 2 with the hammer in the first and seventh ends and 3 in the fifth en route to a 9-7 victory. With that loss, Law , the 2000 world champ, and her team of Shannon Aleksic, Kirsten Fox and Dawn Suliak were done for the week, while Scott earned the right to face Mallett in Sunday evening’s final. Look for Scott and her team to make a big impact at the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts when it’s contested in Red Deer, Alberta from February 18-26.