Trent men, Laurier women crowned OUA curling champions

Guelph, Ont. - The Trent Excalibur men’s curling team and Laurier Golden Hawks women’s curling team were crowned 2011 OUA Curling Champions on Monday afternoon at the Guelph Curling Club.  2011 marks the first time Trent has ever won the OUA Curling Championship while the Laurier women’s squad won its fourth title.

Trent avenged a round robin loss to the Hawks to capture gold by a score of 8-6 while the Lady Hawks earned a come from behind victory to win 10-4 over the Guelph Gyphons who claimed silver.  The men’s bronze medal went to Guelph while the Brock Badgers won third spot on the women’s side.

The University of Waterloo played host to 11 schools as they competed for the top OUA curling prize.  The event took part over a five day span with each school playing in a total of eight draws with the top four teams in the men’s and women’s divisions moving on to the playoff round.

Both the men’s and women’s Golden Hawk teams went undefeated in the round robin with an 8-0 record.  The Trent men’s team, wearing their colourful plaid shirts went 6-2 in the round robin finishing third overall.

The Guelph Gryphons men’s team had a strong round robin showing going 7-1 and earning a second place finish heading into the playoffs.  Laurentian and Waterloo each finished with 5-3 records and faced off in the tie-breaker. 

Laurentian earned the final playoff berth winning the men’s tie-breaker by a score of 6-5 over the Warriors setting up a semifinal match up with Laurier.  The other men’s semifinal featured Trent and Guelph.

The Hawks would continue their undefeated streak into the semifinals slipping past the Laurentian Voyageurs 6-5 with the last rock of the eighth and final end.  The Voyageurs had set up several guards forcing skip Matt Mapletoft (Wallaceburg, Ont.) of the Hawks to make a spectacular shot to send his Hawks to the gold medal game. 

In the other men’s semifinal the Gryphons and Excalibur would need an extra end to decide who would punch their ticket to the OUA gold medal match.  With Guelph holding the hammer, Trent would steal one to win the game 6-5 setting up a Laurier, Trent gold medal game. 

The men’s final featured some sharp shooting by Laurier (who bolstered 3 of the 4 first-team all-stars) and Trent who battled back and forth all game.  Trent scored three points in the fourth end off a beautiful shot by skip Michael Bryson (Pickering, Ont.) to take a 5-3 lead but Laurier responded with two of their own in the fifth to tie the game at five. 

Trent would once again post another two points with the hammer to take a 7-5 lead with two ends remaining.  The Hawks could only score one of their own with the hammer in the seventh end and were forced to steal one in the eighth to send the game to an extra end.  Following a freeze shot by Mapletoft, skip Bryson made a pressure shot to the button to take one point and the 8-6 gold medal victory. 

The Gryphons defeated Laurentian 9-3 in the men’s bronze medal game to earn the third and final berth to the CIS Championship.

On the women’s side the Gryphons matched the record of their men’s squad going 7-1 throughout the round robin.  Brock also had a strong showing going 7-1 and was ranked third going into the playoff round due to an 8-3 loss to Guelph in the round robin.  The Western Mustangs earned the fourth and final playoff spot following a 7-4 victory over Laurentian in a tie-breaker. 

The women’s semifinal match-up’s featured two lopsided victories with Laurier defeating Western 7-2 and Guelph cruising past Brock 8-2.  Skip Laura Crocker (Scarborough, Ont.) of the Hawks continued her strong play to lead her team to the gold medal match against Clancy Grandy and the Gryphons.

In the women’s final Guelph jumped out to an early 4-2 lead and seemed to have control of the game before Laurier stole four points in the fifth end to take a 6-4 lead with only three ends remaining.  Laurier would steal four points in the next two ends and Guelph would concede to give Laurier a 10-4 gold medal victory after seven ends of curling.

Brock earned the bronze medal with an 8-5 win over Western to punch their ticket to the CIS Championship as the third qualifying team.

Visit the following link to see complete results from the 2011 OUA Curling Championship: www.varsity.uwaterloo.ca/ouacurlingchampionship 

2011 OUA Curling All-Stars

Women

First team:
Skip: Laura Crocker, Laurier
Vice: Jessica Corrado, Brock
Second: Jen Gates, Laurier
Lead: Joanne Curtis, Brock

Second team:
Skip: Clancy Grandy, Guelph
Vice: Jacklyn Rivington, Guelph
Second: Lauren Wasylkiw, Brock
Lead: Katelyn Wasylkiw, Guelph

Men

First team:
Skip: Matt Mapletoft, Laurier
Vice: Scott McGregor, Laurier
Second: Shane Konings, Laurier
Lead: Adam Leger, Guelph

Second team:
Skip: Craig Van Ymeren, Guelph
Vice: Tyler Jones, Trent
Second: Joey Lanthier, Western
Lead: Curtis Nichol, Queen`s

Standings after Round Robin