West Niagara books return trip to OFSAA
The Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association girls curling final Thursday at the Niagara Falls Curling Club went from a laugher to a nail-biter.
West Niagara (skip Taylor Smith, vice Rebecca Findlay, second Kiran Mierau, lead Katelyn Ferris, spare Aislinn Mierau and coach Josee Findlay) jumped out to an 8-2 lead over Westlane (skip Andrea Topp, vice Mariia Borysova, second Elodie Foster, lead Sarah Allard and coaches Niall Gardner and Marsha Hunter) after five ends but Westlane came roaring back. The Spartans scored two in the sixth and seventh ends before running out of rocks in the eighth end of a game that finished 8-6.
“My team worked really hard and I am proud of them. It was close but we did it,” Smith said. “We were starting to get nervous and my dad was starting to give me looks.”
West Niagara graduated the skip and second off a rink that won an Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations bronze medal last year but four members of the team are back for another crack at OFSAA competition.
“It was a great experience,” said Smith, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student. “We learned more etiquette and how things worked at OFSAA.”
Smith isn’t predicting another medal this time around.
“Our expectations are a little bit lower but it’s OK. We are there to have fun.”
She felt her rink was successful this season because of how much her teammates improved.
“We worked on things in practice that we needed to work on and it benefitted us a lot.”
Three members of the team curl at the club level.
The Smith name is a familiar one in West Niagara/Grimsby curling. Taylor’s older sister, Amanda, skipped the school to a few SOSSA championships. Amanda is a mentor for her younger sibling.
“She helps me out a lot. She comes out on the ice and explains things to me. We watch curling together and she helps with my thinking.”
West Niagara, which went 3-1 in league play, advanced to the SOSSA final with a 10-1 victory over Denis Morris (Olivia Haywood, Grace James, Keira Masales, Cassandra Muzyka and Sarah Vandervaart).
Topp, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student, was thrilled her team came so close to winning a SOSSA title with a rink made up of only one club curler.
“We had a rough season but after we figured it out, we used all our experience in this game. We have a lot of new players and they improved a lot this year. Our second, Elodie, improved the most, and me and our vice, Mariia, we had the most experience and we were kind of carrying the team.”
Thinking positive helped Westlane make the final close.
“We just kept hoping. We never been to OFSAA and that was motivation. We wanted to try it, we wanted to do it and we kept telling each other to not give up.”
She credited team morale for helping her team reach the SOSSA final after going 1-5 in league play.
“It was demotivating to lose those games but we started connecting and we were able to communicate without speaking much. That really helped with what we needed to do during a game. We didn’t think we would be here.”
Westlane will lose Borysova to graduation but everyone else will be back next year.
“We will have the same strategies but we will work on specific shots and stuff and combine all our knowledge,” Top said.
Westlane defeated A.N. Myer (skip Jordan Quait, vice Avalon Goodine, second Le-Andria Knight-Williams, lead Brooklyn Russell and spare Aaliyah Henry) by a 8-5 score in the semifinals.
