Staff
There was only one opponent that Judy LaBelle couldn’t conquer at the senior women’s provincial playdowns in Blind River over the weekend.
LaBelle and her rink of third Mary Beth Tkachuk, second Maureen Thomson, and lead Trudy Badiuk fell twice to Sudbury’s Vicky Barrett, including 9-2 in yesterday’s final, to blemish an otherwise spotless effort.
LaBelle fell behind early in the championship match, allowing four in the first end to go along with steals of two in the second and one more in the third to fall behind 7-0.
The local rink got on the board with a single in the fourth, but Barrett struck back for two in the fifth.
LaBelle picked up one in the sixth, but the teams exchanged handshakes after that—giving Barrett a berth at the national playdowns March 20-27 in Ottawa.
Prior to Saturday morning’s loss to Barrett that, at 14-8, looked more like a football score than a curling one, LaBelle had blazed through other opponents, including a 10-5 defeat of Cristiene Hall-Teravainen (Port Arthur) on Friday to improve to 3-0.
She then rebounded to edge Joy Lappalainen (Fort William) 6-4 on Saturday evening.
In Friday’s showdown with Hall-Teravainen, LaBelle used a big fifth end to turn the tide in her favour, scoring four to turn a 4-3 deficit into a 7-4 lead and never looking back.
But she suffered her first loss against Barrett as the Sudbury skip had a couple of big ends in her, too, putting up four in the first end and five in the third to lead 9-3 in the early going.
The scoring was tamer in her win over Lappalainen as LaBelle put up singles in each of the first three ends to build a lead she never relinquished.
