Seniors curling
Dan Holowaychuk of St. Albert returns to the Canadian senior (50-plus) men’s curling championship with last year’s world gold-medal winning rink.
The third nationals in a row for the Wade White foursome of third Barry Chwedoruk, Holowaychuk at second and lead George White starts Friday in Chilliwack, B.C.
The 2017 Canadian champions and last year’s 6-4 non-playoff squad at nationals qualified for the 14-team competition with a 10-6 extra-end decision over Mark Johnson in the Curling Alberta final last month in Spruce Grove to finish 8-1.
This year’s winner will represent Canada at the 2020 world senior championships at a site and date to be announced by the World Curling Federation.
The 2018 national champion, Bryan Cochrane of Russell, Ont., is back to defend his title before heading to worlds next month in Stavanger, Norway.
Team White
At last year’s worlds in Oestersund, Sweden, the White rink became the 10th Canadian team to stand on top of the medal podium at the 17th annual competition and the ninth win in 10 games was the 8-2 rout in six ends against Mats Wrana, the two-time defending champion and home-country favourite.
This year’s nationals consisted of two pools of teams based on last year’s results. After the round robin, the top four in each pool advance to the championship pool for games against teams from the other pool and the remaining teams enter the seeding pool.
In pool B, the Alberta champions play Dave Boehmer of Manitoba, Francois Roberge of Quebec, Brent MacDougall of Nova Scotia, Phil Gorveatt of Prince Edward Island, Gary Oke of Newfoundland and Labrador and Glen Hudy of the Northwest Territories.
The semifinals and the medal finals are next Thursday.
Visit www.curling.ca for the schedule and results.
Holowaychuk, 56, was inducted into St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame in 2014 and served as the alternate for the Ferbey Four during their run of greatness.
The six-time club champion and skip for the winning St. Albert men’s rink at the 1989 Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions made his national debut in 2013 with the bronze-medal lineup of White, third Doug McLennan and lead George Parsons.
3A provincials
The Morinville Wolves and Sturgeon Spirits hooped it up in Saturday’s consolation final at the 3A provincial high school women’s championship in Athabasca.
The 59-52 victory by the Wolves featured several lead changes before the Morinville squad pulled ahead by six points with under four minutes remaining.
A combination of foul trouble to start the third quarter, an 8-for-18 free throw showing and the emotions involved in playing in the fifth/sixth game against the Wolves proved to be Sturgeon’s downfall.
Makayla Attfield was stellar defensively for the Wolves while taking two charges at key times and Jenna McKinney also nailed two clutch three-pointers.
Jenessa Doctor, a metro Edmonton division two all-star, and Haylee Sidor finished the game with 15 points apiece.
The Wolves were seeded fifth and Sturgeon was sixth in the 12-team tournament.
Visit www.StAlbertToday.ca to view the team picture of the Wolves.
At last year’s provincials, the Wolves finished sixth as the No. 7 seed and Sturgeon placed 10th as the No. 6 seed.
Provincials started with wins of 69-53 for the Wolves against the No. 12 All Saints of Calgary and 48-32 for Sturgeon against the host Edwin Parr Predators.
Hayley Deveau’s hot shooting against the Saints included two three-pointers in the first half to get the Wolves rolling.
Doctor led Sturgeon with 15 points as the home crowd made things interesting for the Sprits against the Predators.
In the quarter-finals, the Wolves fell 65-48 to the No. 4 McCoy Colts of Medicine Hat and Sturgeon suffered a 51-30 loss to the No. 3 St. Peter the Apostle Spartans of Spruce Grove.
The Wolves struggled to score early and fell behind in the second quarter when Grade 11 post Jordan Hassell got into foul trouble which caused match-up problems inside.
The Wolves battled back to close the gap to three at the end of the third quarter. However, McCoy drained two straight three-pointers to stretch its lead early in the fourth quarter.
Laura Stalzer tossed in 13 points to pace the Wolves.
Down seven at halftime against the Spartans, Sturgeon struggled offensively for the rest of the game against the metro Edmonton division two finalists.
Sidor scored a team-high 13 points as Sturgeon shot 28 per cent as a team and 44 per cent from the free throw line.
In the consolation bracket, the semifinal scores were 52-31 for the Wolves against the No. 8 Holy Rosary Raiders of Lloydminster and 70-67 for Sturgeon against the No. 7 St. Joseph Falcons of Red Deer.
Alicia Diberardino recorded 12 points and 15 rebounds for the Wolves.
Sturgeon battled back from a five-point deficit at halftime as Shelby Pierce and Doctor tacked up 20 points apiece against the Saints.
Sturgeon also shot 49 per cent from the field, including 45 per cent from the three-point arch.
Next year Sturgeon hosts 3A provincials.
The Wolves completed a 24-8 season as back-to-back winners of the North Central zone championship and will graduate Diberardino, Stalzer, McKinney and Sydney Jones.
