Spartan curling exceeded expectations

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The 2015 Strathmore High School boys and girls curling teams both saw medals come home from zones and a very strong showing at provincials.
“We started the year with three curling teams. Unfortunately, our boys and mixed team had conflicts with both of their club teams making it to provincials,” said co-coach Brad Steele.
Both teams played very well at zones considering how many players were new to the sport.
“Three of our girls at zones were very new curlers, did really well,” said Steele. “They improved immensely and were actually able to finish second in their pool and won a bronze medal.”
“Our boys team went to districts and beat Standard and Holy Cross to qualify for zones and managed to win gold at zones. We were the South Central Zone champion for the second year in a row.”
As a result of the boys’ successful showing at zones, they attended the provincial championship in Lloydminster from March 6-7, but they fell short in their games.
“We played very well in all our games. They came down to the last end and we lost three in a row and so not good,” said Steele. “It was just a little bit unfortunate with timing of our errors and even though we were quite competitive, we weren’t good enough to get out of our pool.”
Coach Michelle Ladene thought the teams played their strategies well.
“In the zones, yes we did, I think that really worked out well. The ice was really nice there as the builder was the same one as Strathmore,” said Ladene. “The girls knew really what to expect and so did the boys and ice conditions were really easy to adapt to.”
She felt that both teams were able to use their draw weight really well in winning medals.