Joey Payeur
Kathie Jackson and her rink left Thunder Bay with no championship but no regrets, either.
“It was a fantastic week,” said the Fort Frances skip, whose quartet of third Teresa McFayden, second Lisa Penner, and lead Kris Sinclair finished tied for sixth in the “Grey” Pool and out of the playoffs as the Northern Ontario reps at The Dominion Club Curling Championships at the Fort William Curling Club.
“We had lots of fun and lots of support from family and friends,” Jackson noted.
“We met so many wonderful people from across the country.”
Northern Ontario split its first two games, losing to eventual champion Stacey Fordyce (Manitoba) 7-4 before bouncing back with a 9-4 victory over Paulette Girvan (New Brunswick).
But four-straight losses left Jackson and her team on the outside looking in.
“We were in every game,” she recalled. “We were right there in the eighth end with a chance to win each time.
“But it just wasn’t our week.”
Facing Lauren Jenkyns (Alberta) in her third game, Jackson scored a deuce in the sixth to tie the tight defensive battle at 2-2.
Then holding Jenkyns to a single in the seventh, Northern Ontario seemed poised to take the victory with last-rock advantage in the eighth.
But instead of getting their deuce, the local squad gave up two instead to fall 5-2.
“We were playing to win in the eighth and [Jenkyns] made a good shot to get the steal,” Jackson said.
Following a 6-3 loss to Monique Gagnier (Northwest Territories), Northern Ontario faced a must-win game against Nicole Baldwin (Yukon) and got off to a great start with a single in the first and a steal of one in the second.
But after blanking the next two ends, Baldwin finally got the break she was looking for with a three-ender in the fifth.
She then stole singles in the sixth and seventh before Jackson ran out of rocks in the eighth to fall 5-2—eliminating her rink from playoff contention.
“It was real unfortunate that we didn’t pull that one out because the two teams we needed to lose in that draw did,” lamented Jackson.
Northern Ontario’s final opponent, Amy Gibson’s B.C. rink, also was out of the running by when they met in the final draw.
“We wanted to win the last one but we were more worried about going out there and having fun,” said Jackson, whose crew gave up a three-ender in the second to fall behind 3-1 and never led again in losing 7-4 to finish at 1-5.
The 2014 Dominion provincials are set for Sudbury in March, with Jackson already eyeing a return to the national stage next November in Halifax.
“Absolutely, we want to get back there,” she stressed.
“To get to go to Halifax to curl would be really nice.”
