Staff
After winning a mother of a tie-breaker, Hailey Beaudry of Fort Frances and Erin Tomalty from Nestor Falls almost became children of destiny.
The two former Muskie curlers, playing skip and lead, respectively, for the Lakehead University Thunderwolves, wound up with the silver medal following a 7-4 loss to the Laurentian University Voyageurs (Sudbury) yesterday in the final of the 2017 U-Sports/Curling Canada University Curling Championships in Thunder Bay.
The Thunderwolves wound up in a three-way tie for fourth place at 3-4 with the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds and the St. Francis Xavier X-Women (Antigonish, N.S.) following preliminary-round play.
Details of the tie-breaker format were not available at press time, but the Thunderwolves got the nod to advance to the semi-finals against undefeated Kristen Streifel and the two-time defending champion University of Alberta Pandas.
Streifel, who was an alternate on last year’s victorious Pandas’ rink skipped by two-time world junior champion Kelsey Rocque, was a perfect 7-0 to finish first in the round-robin.
But the Thunderwolves, whose rink also included third Kendra Lemieux and second Emily Cooney, beat the Pandas 7-5 after having lost 8-6 to Alberta in the round-robin finale the previous night.
Then in the final, Lakehead and Laurentian were deadlocked at 2-2 after five ends in a huge reversal from their earlier matchup, which the Voyageurs won handily 11-2 in eight ends.
The Voyageurs broke the game open with a three-spot in the sixth.
Then after the Thunderwolves notched a deuce in the seventh to pull within one, they tacked on a pair in the ninth to seal the victory.
Alberta took the bronze by beating the Dalhousie Tigers (Halifax) 9-2 in eight ends.
