Winning her first medal at the North American Indigenous Games did nothing to rescue Courtney Anderson from the pressure cooker.
She didn't have time to savour her bronze-medal win with Jarin Davison, her under-16 mixed doubles partner from Prince George, after their three-set (20-22, 21-11, 21-16) victory Friday morning over Dylan Anderson and Mandy Lucy of Newfoundland/Labrador.
Before she and Davison could get to the good stuff coming to them on the medal podium in Regina, Anderson had some unfinished business.
She and her U-16 female doubles partner Julia Bood of Comox went right to work, defeating Alyssa Bernard and Mackenzie Thomas of P.E.I. (19-21, 21-14, 21-14) for Anderson's second bronze medal. But she came up short in her quest for a third medal when she lost to Santanna Bill of Saskatchewan in straight sets (21-15, 21-19) in the U-16 singles bronze medal final.
Considering she hadn't played for more than a month leading up to the tournament, Anderson far exceeded her own expectations.
"I'm really quite proud of myself for achieving this," said the 16-year-old Anderson. "It's surprising.
"We lost our first game of the day [in the mixed doubles match] and we just gave our all in the second game and pulled it off. That didn't take much of the pressure off because I still wanted to try my best and get the next bronze medal."
By the time Anderson got to her singles match, fatigue was setting in.
"I was definitely a little more tired than I would have liked to have been, but I just tried to put that out of my mind," said Anderson.
Davison, 15, said the mixed doubles medal took some of the sting out of being eliminated Thursday in the U-16 male singles quarterfinal round.
"It feels like I accomplished something," said Davison. "It was a close game, it was a hard game, and it was a hard game to focus in. There were a lot people and we were the last people out there in a 40-minute game.
"We had to pay $300 [each] to get here. I would say it was worth the money."
Anderson and Davison plan to watch a few of the remaining sporting events leading up to tonight's closing ceremonies, which will be broadcast live on on the Games website - www2.myaccess.ca/naig starting at 7:30 p.m. PDT.
