Team S. Anderson managed to squeak out two victories in the final games of the 2018 Viterra Scotties Women’s Provincials, winning an event mostly dominated by Team Silvernagle and Team Eberle.
Team Silvernagle placed first in the round robin of the provincials, which ran from Jan. 2 to 7, winning seven out of eight games. Team Eberle place second with victories in six out of eight games. Team S. Anderson, Barker and Lawton tied for third, winning four out of eight games.
“It’s an extremely even field here,” said Christie Gamble, Team Eberle’s third. “I’ve competed in a lot of provincials, I’ve seen a lot of competitions, I don’t think you’ll ever find a provincial that has the same parity as this particular event does.”
In the playoffs, Team Barker defeated Team Lawton in a tiebreaker, Team S. Anderson defeated Team Barker in the 3 vs. 4, Team Silvernagle defeated Team Eberle in the 1 vs. 2., Team S. Anderson defeated Team Eberle in the semifinal 6-5 with an extra end and then repeated that performance to defeat Team Silvernagle 7-6 in the final during an extra end.
“Nothing was going through my mind until after the shot was made and then it was pure joy,” said Sherry Anderson, Team Anderson’s skip. “It’s hard to describe the feeling when you win a championship. I know how bad it feels when you lose and I’ve had that feeling over the years way too many times.”
For veteran curler Anderson, it’s her ninth women’s provincial and her seventh title.
As for the rest of her team, it is the first time at the provincials for lead Karlee Korchinski, 22; the third time for second Krista Fesser, 23; and the second time for third Kourtney Fesser, 23. It was the first time all had won before.
“It was kind of surreal. We came in here, we were ranked eighth, so to be in this spot right now, it’s pretty special. I’m super proud of our team,” Korchinski said. “It’s what every curler dreams of and for us to be doing this at 22 and 23 is pretty amazing.”
Anderson said she began having a young team three years ago after she had finished playing with Stefanie Lawton’s team.
“A couple of them changed and then I got Krista last year. The two that I had last year, one moved away and one took a year off, so we got Krista’s twin sister Kourtney, and Karlee. They had all played together before, so I said sure.”
Anderson said she’s pleased with their great performance at the event.
Krista said that key to their success was just sticking with it.
“They got a deuce in the first, so we were just making sure that we were making the high percentage shots and sticking with the game and the game plan,” she said. “Keeping hammer in even ends was really huge for us and the fourth and ninth was also really huge.”
Team Anderson got a single point in the third and fourth, Team Silvernagle got two in the fifth, both teams earned one point each in the sixth and seventh, Anderson got two in the eighth and one in the ninth. Silvernagle got one in the tenth, tying the game.
“We played well. We made a lot of good shots,” Anderson said. “We got a deuce and we put a bunch of pressure on them in the ninth end and we were able to steal one and that gave us control of the game – late.”
As for that last shot, Krista wasn’t quite sure at the time if it would score the final point.
“On her last shot, she threw and Karlee and I thought it was a little light and then when we went end to end, we saw it hit the four foot,” she said. “We didn’t even see where it stopped. We knew that it won the game and it was a pretty awesome moment from there.”
Korchinski said she thought the key to their success was keeping calm.
“I know there wasn’t a bunch of pressure on us, so for us it was just going out there, shoot and have fun and good things happened.”
As for Kourtney, she thought the key was patience.
That was a really patient game from us. I think we knew if we could get it close at the end that we [could do it]. We’ve had the patience all year to grind it out at the end as a team.”
Anderson said Team Silvernagle were good opponents.
“They played really well all week and I thought they had a pretty good game that game. There wasn’t a bunch of shots that they’d like to do over,” she said. “I think it was a well-played game by both teams.”
