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Connor rink handed silver at provincials

On the way to provincial silver, Carly Connor and her rinkmates beat a team skipped by one of the best young curlers in Canada. The Connor crew - including Lorelei Guidos, Hannah Lindner and Jordan Henson - competed at the first-ever B.C.
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Lead Jordan Henson, second Hannah Lindner, third Lorelei Guidos, skip Carly Connor and coach Doug Dalziel pose with the silver medals they won at the B.C. under-18 curling championship last weekend in Nanaimo.

On the way to provincial silver, Carly Connor and her rinkmates beat a team skipped by one of the best young curlers in Canada.

The Connor crew - including Lorelei Guidos, Hannah Lindner and Jordan Henson - competed at the first-ever B.C. under-18 championship last weekend in Nanaimo. After going through pool play with a 2-1 record, Connor and company took on a Delta rink led by Sarah Daniels, a 2016 B.C. junior (under-21) champion who went on to a silver-medal finish at that year's junior national tournament. In a semifinal clash between Connor and Daniels, an extra end was needed to decide the winner and that turned out to be Connor by a 4-3 count.

In the final, Team Connor stepped onto the ice against the Heather Drexel foursome (players from Coquitlam, Cloverdale and Chilliwack) and lost 5-2. While falling short of victory was disappointing, it did little to take away from the satisfaction of playing at such a high level in the eight-team event.

"It's an amazing feeling," said the 16-year-old Connor, who got her start in the sport 12 years ago in the Prince George Golf and Curling Club's Little Rock program.

"We played really well. We went in just wanting to win games. We hadn't really played together very much because Hannah's from Fort St. John and Lorelei's from Salmon Arm so we just wanted to really gel and bond and try and win games and it turned out really well."

Beating Daniels, who won all three of her round-robin games, was a highlight. She and her teammates - Catera Park, Kim Bonneau and Sarah Loken - held a 2-0 advantage after five ends but Connor came back with two points in the sixth and a steal of one in the seventh. Daniels tied the game 3-3 in the eighth (a measurement was required) but Connor used the hammer in the extra end and sealed the one-point victory.

"We just played clean the whole game and as soon as we had the opportunity to score points, we jumped on that," said Connor, a Grade 11 student at Duchess Park secondary school. "It was a long game and the extra end was very stressful but we came out on top and that was nice."

In the pressure-filled atmosphere, Connor made a great shot with the first of her two rocks in the ninth. With a mess of granite out front of the house, she drew to the button, behind cover, for shot stone. The only chance Daniels had to counter was to play an in-off - to play her rock off another and angle her shooter to the button - but she hit her target stone too thick and the game was over.

In the final, Drexel led 2-1 after five ends and took a key three points in the sixth.

"We had a couple misses in six, unfortunate misses," said Doug Dalziel, coach of the Connor rink. "And it was kind of the TSN turning point - we gambled on trying to freeze to one because we didn't really want to go down 4-1. We decided we were going to try to freeze to one of her back rocks and hold her to one, hopefully, but we just rolled off and gave her the wide-open hit for three."

Connor got one back in the seventh end but that was as close as the game got.

With the win, Drexel and teammates Everly Royea, Bailey Burke and Madeline Britz advanced to the inaugural edition of the under-18 nationals, April 17-22 in Moncton, N.B.

"It stings a little when you're that close (to winning) but it was a good weekend," Dalziel said. "They're super-proud of their silver medal - they played awesome all weekend."

In round-robin play, Team Connor beat Clare Schmidt of Winfield 10-5, edged Gracelyn Richards 7-6 and lost 6-2 to Drexel.

In the men's under-18 provincial tournament, also in Nanaimo, the James Brown rink of Prince George finished at 0-3. Team Brown lost 8-4 to Jordan Geiger of Invermere, 7-4 to Adam Raber of Vernon/Salmon Arm and 8-3 to eventual champion Tyler Tardi. Brown's rinkmates are Alasdair Wilson, Tyler Slaney and Andrew Sherstan.

In the final, Tardi's Langley/Victoria team defeated Raber 7-3.