Alberta’s Cathy King is in the Playoffs

The Saville Sports Centre skip won her 8th game today dumping BC’s Penny Shantz 8-5 and continues to lead the round robin at 8-1. One more victory will vault King to Sunday’s championship final. She will face Saskatchewan’s Darlene Gillies and Northern Ontario’s Darla Esch in her final two round robin games. The game was tied at three playing the 6th end with Shantz having last stone advantage. Alberta had scoring in mind stealing three in that end followed by steals of one in both the 7th and 8th ends for a comfortable win. Cathy Cunningham of the RE/MAX Centre in St. John’s and Nancy Delahunt of Halifax kept pace with King, each scoring wins in draw 17. The Newfoundland and Labrador skip scored a 4 ender and stole 5 in a 13-3 trouncing of Manitoba’s Laurie Deprez. Delahunt, with Colleen Jones throwing last stones, scored often in a 9-3 drubbing of PEI’s Shirley Berry. Both Cunningham and Delahunt are assured of at least a tie-breaker sitting now at 7-2. One more victory for either side will guarantee them a semi final berth. Cunningham has BC and PEI on schedule for their remaining games while Delahunt will meet NWT and Manitoba. Gillies of the Unity CC in Saskatchewan wasted an opportunity to keep pace with the leaders and a chance for a playoff spot by squandering a two point lead in the last end then allowing Ontario’s Nancy Harrison to steal another two points in the extra end for an 8-6 loss. She must now win her final two games against Alberta and New Brunswick and hope for either Cunningham or Delahunt to lose their final two games to force a tie-breaker. Gillies is at 5-4 while Burlington’s Harrison sits at 4-5. All teams with five losses have been eliminated from playoff contention. In other games, defending champion Heidi Hanlon of New Brusnwick kept her slim playoff hopes alive denying NWT’s Ann McKellar-Gillis her first win by scoring a single in the last end for a 7-6 win. Hanlon’s 5-4 record forces her to win out against Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan and, like Darlene Gillies, must hope for two losses by both NL and NS. In the final game on the ice, Darla Esch dump Quebec’s Odette Trudel 11-5. Scores & Standings The round robin continues until Friday, March 23 with semi-finals for both genders then scheduled for Saturday followed by both championship finals, Sunday, March 25 at 2:00pm EST.