Staff
The situation is simple for Fort Frances native Tirzah Keffer and the rest of her Northern Ontario rink at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Junior Curling Championships in Fort McMurray, Alta. today.
If the foursome from the Port Arthur Curling Club hopes to advance to the championship pool, they’ll have to beat Sarah Dumais of Quebec in their final Pool ‘B’ game this afternoon (2 p.m. CST) to guarantee no worse than a tie-breaker.
Heading into the final day of pool play, the Keffer rink, which also features third Sheree Hinz, second Megan Westlund, and lead Rachel Camlin, are tied for the fourth and final berth to the championship pool with Carina McKay-Saturnino (Northwest Territories) at 2-3.
Shannon Birchard of Manitoba, the runner-up in last year’s event, is atop the Pool ‘B’ standings with a 4-0 mark and is the only women’s skip who has yet to lose a game so far.
The top four teams in each seven-team pool advance to a championship pool, which will run tomorrow to Friday to determine the top three teams for the playoffs.
The other three teams from each pool that fail to advance, meanwhile, will compete in a seeding pool from Wednesday to Friday, which will determine the rankings for next year’s championships.
Keffer opened play yesterday on a winning note with an 11-6 win over Veronica Smith (P.E.I.) to earn her second-straight victory.
But their momentum came to a screeching halt last night as they fell 11-1 in eight ends to Mary Myketyn-Driscoll (Nova Scotia).
The women’s final is slated for Sunday at 6 p.m. (CST), with the winner going on to represent Canada at the worlds Feb. 28-March 10 in Sochi, Russia.
