Griffins capture first ACAC mixed curling title in a decade, women qualify for nationals

Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics

CAMROSE – Aidan Munro hit a Portage College stone right on the nose with his final shot, clearing it out of the house to score two and clinch MacEwan's first Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference mixed curling championship in a decade on Sunday.

The Griffins rink of skip Jordan Semen, third Rebecca Bartz, second Munro (who throws last stones), lead Andrea Bury, and alternates Quintin Bishop and Hilary Charlie put MacEwan's name on the ACAC mixed trophy for the first time since 2008 and sixth time overall.

"It felt really good," said Semen of Wainwright, Alta., after MacEwan's 7-5 victory over the Voyageurs in Sunday's gold medal match at the Rose City Curling Club. "We're still in shock about it – our whole team is. It still hasn't even sunk in. We talked about it on the bus ride – still can't even believe it happened.

"We knew we could do it, but to actually have the trophy in our hands and banner sitting beside us on the ride home was pretty nice to have."

With MacEwan holding the hammer and the score tied 5-5 heading into the eighth end, Semen said they leaned on a strategy talk from coach Brian Lupul – keep it clean.

"Aidan's first shot he had – there were a couple of stones up front that needed to be moved around and cleared out and he made a nice little peel shot to open it up for his last shot," he said. "We had a biter in the back 12 foot there, so he just had to make (Portage's) stone go away that was top four and he hit it on the nose and that was the game."

The Griffins mixed rink made it through the round robin unscathed at 3-0 – beating Portage 7-3, Red Deer College 7-1 and NAIT 4-3. But they ran into a bad end against the Voyageurs in the 1-2 game on Saturday, losing 7-5. That meant they took a longer road to get back to the final where Portage was waiting for them, needing to beat NAIT 7-3 in Saturday night's semifinal.

"The 1-2 game where we lost, we didn't follow our strategy that we talked about with Brian before the game – just keep things open and make the Portage team hit," said Semen. "We know that's the weakness with their team. We just wanted to play a hitting game and keep it open.

"When we had an opportunity to get a deuce or a big score, we pounced on it. Definitely, the difference was just keeping it open and playing our strategy instead of their strategy, which is playing with a lot of rocks in play and a lot of guards."

MacEwan's women's rink had a shot at their third banner in the past five years, but lost 6-2 to RDC in Sunday's final to finish as silver medalists. Still, the top-two result means they will be moving on to the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association nationals in Leduc March 24-28.

"That was the long-term goal," said head coach Tom Kitagawa. "To win the ACAC was an intermediate step. Unfortunately, we didn't quite get there, but we gave it a heck of a shot.

"The ladies played really well. We unfortunately had one bad end in (the final) game and just couldn't recover."

That was the sixth when they gave up three to the Queens – the turning point in the contest.

"It was a little late in the game to do that," said MacEwan women's skip Ashton Simard. "We were heavy on some draws and light on some and gave them an opportunity and they capitalized on it."

There is definitely a learning moment for the Griffins women's team of Simard, third Erin Wells, second Andie Kurjata, lead Sara Fraser and alternate Charlie.

"We can work our mistakes, knowing the right way to miss – (whether it's) better to be light, better to be heavy in those circumstances," said Simard. "We need to work on just keeping it cleaner, trying to get more of their rocks out of play."

Andie Kurjata was named as an ACAC all-star at the second position on the weekend. She helped her team qualify for nationals with an ACAC silver medal (Len Joudrey photo).

They were questing after the sixth women's banner in program history, but just to make it back to nationals a year after not even qualifying for the ACAC Championship is a sweet piece of redemption.

"Especially with the disappointment of last season, just to be able to get back to nationals and go and represent MacEwan and hopefully contend for a medal will be great," said Simard, who will be vying for more redemption at nationals after a bout of food poisoning two years ago in London, Ont., cost her a day of action and the Griffins missed the playoffs.

In Camrose, the women went 1-2 through the round robin (9-8 win over Concordia followed by an 8-5 loss to NAIT and a 7-2 loss to RDC) but ended up second after both the Ooks and Thunder also finished 1-2. RDC, however, edged the Griffins 5-4 in the 1-2 game, forcing MacEwan to advance out of the semifinal, which they did – a 10-5 win over NAIT.

"For the most part, we were pretty consistent," said Simard. "We had a couple of bad ends, but we were able to recover from them and make a comeback. All of our games were pretty tight. They could have gone either way."

During the weekend, Kurjata was named to the ACAC All Conference women's team at the second position.

"From the ladies' team, she's probably one of the most consistent hitters," said Kitagawa. "She plays very good, she's a good sweeper – just generally speaking a very good all-around curler. It's nice to see the other teams (recognize her)."