Strategy for victory

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/12/2009 (6000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Alyssa VANDEPOELE has a very simple strategy for when she hits the Charleswood Curling Club ice this morning to play Jesse Iles of The Pas in the first round of the Curl Manitoba junior women’s provincial championship.

Seeded third, the Ste-Anne skip and her team of third Selena Kaatz, second Kristin MacCuish, lead Lindsay Baldock and fifth D’Arcy Maywood lost in the final last year to Kaitlyn Lawes, so she knows the pressure this bonspiel can place on her.

"We want to be 4-0 after our first four games," she said, "and then win enough of our last three to be in the one vs. one game, and then win the final. That way, we’re not looking ahead to the outcome right away. We’re looking at one rock at a time, one end at a time, one game at a time."

Over at the Deer Lodge Curling Club, No. 1 seed Alex Forrest was going up against Brandon’s Brett Fitzmaurice in the junior men’s championship bonspiel. Curling with Forrest are third Joey Witherspoon, second Connor Njegovan and lead Mike Neufeld.

Both bonspiels will go all weekend, with semifinals scheduled for Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. and the final at 1:30 p.m.

This is Forrest’s sixth junior provincial bonspiel, and he says it doesn’t get any easier. "I lost in the final two years ago," he explained. "I was playing third for Jeff Lang. It’s really tough. Anybody can come out on top. You just have to be playing your best when you get here. We know we can win, but we aren’t going in thinking that it’s for sure that we are going to win.

"I don’t want to be too confident, and then have it backfire on us."

Commenting on the fact that last year’s champion, Sam Good of Pembina CC, is seeded fifth, Forrest said, "It just shows that any team can play really good on the right weekend and come out on top. So you just have to watch out for everybody."

Vandepoele said her team is on a high right now. "This is the same team we had last year, and we’re having a great year so far," she said.

Above them in the seedings are Kate Cameron of Victoria and Breanne Meakin of St. Vital. Meakin was third for Lawes last year, so she knows her way around the house as well. "The seedings don’t really matter to us," said Vandepoele. "It’s what position you are at the end of the week that counts. The seedings are just a number."

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Forrest agrees with Vandepoele with regard to the seedings, but he says they won’t change a thing. "For sure, everyone will be wanting to beat us, but we’ll keep trying to do what we have been doing. We play well as a team, we all get along, and we hang out off the ice."

The one thing he hopes to avoid is a repeat of last year. "We went 4-3 in provincials. We had a pretty good year, and then we didn’t quite play as well as we had, so we’re hoping for a better outcome this year."

Unlike Vandepoele, Forrest doesn’t really have a plan all mapped out for the tournament. "Of course, first thing we want to do is qualify for the playoffs," he said. "Hopefully first, but we’ll take second or a tiebreaker — anything we can to get in."

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca