Three wins in three games equaled a trip to provincials for Colten Vriesendorp and his curling team.
Not bad for a squad who'd only been together since last fall and had to travel out of town for the first half of the season just to practice.
It's exactly what happened to Vriesendorp's Prince George Golf and Curling Club's juvenile men's curling rink Jan. 24 and 25 in Williams Lake.
Vriesendorp, backed by third James Brown, 15, second Alisdair Wilson, 14 and lead Tyler Slaney, 13, won the Zone 8 title and now roll on to the B.C. Juvenile Men's Curling championship March 5 to 8 in Lake Cowichan.
"That was our goal all along was to get to provincials," said Vriesendorp, who calls Mackenzie home.
"If we play like we did (in playdowns) we can go somewhere in provincials," added Slaney.
The Prince George team defeated a pair of rinks from 100 Mile House to qualify for provincials.
Vriesendorp defeated Eric Schuurman 7-1 in the first draw and Ethan Sikiric 12-1 in the second draw.
That set up a rematch against Schuurman in the double-knockout format bonspiel.
Schuurman tied the game up at 4-4 with a deuce in the seventh end. In the eighth end with hammer, all Vriesendorp had to do was draw anywhere in the paint (house) to score the decisive single point to win the game.
"I had my draw weight down and we executed a lot of shots," said Vriesendorp.
The rink came together in October. Vriesendorp and Brown had played together previously for the last two years on another juvenile men's team with skip Dustin Withey where they qualified for provincials. Slaney was the fifth player.
In the fall, due to the lack of ice for the first half of the season at PGGCC, they travelled to Quesnel every Sunday where they practised two hours at a time under coach Bill Fisher.
The team as a whole worked on technical aspects such as their deliveries as well as communication between them
Vriesendorp improved his strategy as a skip, while Slaney and Wilson (whose curling idols are Canadian Olympic gold medallists Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert) worked together as a front end and perfected their sweeping skills to drag rocks further.
"We have really good chemistry now and James and Colten work really well together," said Wilson, who's only played for two years.
Prior to playdowns, they received some advice from Patti Knezevic who recently won the B.C. women's title and is now off to Moose Jaw, Sask. to compete at the national Scott Tournament of Hearts from Feb. 14 to 22.
"She said 70 per cent of the game is in your head, 15 per cent is tactical and 15 per cent is technical," said Slaney, who has eight years of experience on the ice. "If you're not confident and prepared, it could affect your effort."
The B.C. Juvenile Men's championship features two pools of four teams.
Between now and then, Vriesendorp's rink will continue to practise as well as compete in the Thursday night commercial league and the Sunday Open Rec league at PGGCC.
