The Rocky View Sports Association crowned its divisional curling champs after a two-day bonspiel at the Airdrie Curling Club, Feb. 2-3.
In total, four divisions competed, including Grade 9s and a mixed division.
Taking home the title in the Girls Division was the Bow Valley squad skipped by Samantha Reeve. Backed up by lead Holly Mann, second Maranda Danyluk and third Meaghan Williams, the team defeated the senior squad from Cochrane High School.
Mitch Prince’s Cochrane High School boys squad, made up of lead Patrick McElroy, second Carson Morris and third Emmett Larsen, beat Chestermere High School in the gold medal match.
Teams from Airdrie’s George McDougall High School swept the remaining divisions taking the Mixed and Grade 9 titles.
Keely Brown’s Mixed team made up of lead Mac Lenton, second Dacey Brown and third Jordan MacKenzie, beat Cochrane High School to claim gold, while Bradon Dellaire’s squad of lead Eric Dowie, second Megan Moffat and third Connor Lenton defeated the Grade 9 squad from W.G. Murdoch High School in Crossfield.
“There are some good matchups going on,” said coach and curling commissioner Corina Bauer. “Some good skill sets developing.”
Bauer said she is impressed with the number of players coming out of high school curling this year, as some schools have put curling on the backburner in recent seasons.
“Over the past few years, curling has been declining, but this year, our numbers are up across all of the divisions in all of our schools,” Bauer said. “I would say it is the fact that curling has been a little more high profile with us doing well at the Olympics, and always doing well at Worlds.”
Cori Morris, the silver medal winning lead on Team Bernard from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, visited the event on Feb. 2, sticking around and taking photos with some of the teams.
Bauer says a lot of the girls were excited about getting a chance to meet an Olympian, and were quickly texting parents about the visit.
Division champions will be heading to Okotoks for zones with those winners advancing to Lethbridge for provincials in March.
