Staff
The road to Sochi is closed for one local curler and heading through a dangerous intersection for another.
Former Muskie Tirzah Keffer never got a chance to get into the action as the fifth for Thunder Bay’s Krista McCarville, who was eliminated last night in a 10-3 loss to Laura Crocker of Edmonton in the ‘C’ event of the Capital One “Road to the Roar” Olympic pre-trials tournament in Kitchener.
McCarville only trailed 3-2 after stealing a single in the fifth against Crocker.
But Crocker came back with a deuce in the sixth, then stole five in the seventh to put the game out of reach.
McCarville scored a single in the eighth, then shook hands for an abrupt end to her temporary comeback after originally planning to take a year off to look after her family and concentrate on her teaching career.
That decision bumped Keffer to the sidelines into the fifth’s role. And with no injuries to the main McCarville quartet, Keffer only could sit and watch as her team finished the week with a 2-3 record.
Meanwhile, Devlin native Jenna Enge, playing second for the Sudbury-based rink skipped by Tracy Horgan, is in must-win territory after a nail-biting 7-6 loss last night against two-time Alberta champion Renee Sonnenberg of Grande Prairie in the ‘B’ semi-finals.
Horgan coughed up three in the fourth to trail 4-2, but then scored three-consecutive singles to lead 5-4 after seven.
Sonnenberg tied it in the eight, held Horgan to one in the ninth, then scored a pair with the hammer in the 10th to eke out the victory and advance the ‘B’ final against Mississauga’s Cathy Auld.
The loss means the Horgan rink is down to their last life in the triple-knockout event, with their next challenge coming today at 1 p.m. (CT) against Crocker, who already defeated the Horgan foursome 10-6 on Tuesday.
A win will put Horgan into one of two ‘C’ finals tonight at 6 p.m. (CT) against the winner between 2006 Olympic bronze-medalist Shannon Kleibrink of Calgary and Sweeting.
The top two men’s and women’s finishers at the “Road to the Roar” will advance to the Tim Hortons “Roar of the Rings” from Dec. 1-8 in Winnipeg.
The champions of that event will be Canada’s representatives at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia in February.
