Women’s curling in British Columbia has pretty much become Kelly Scott’s domain.
The Kelowna rink won a record fourth consecutive Scotties provincial women’s curling title Sunday in Cloverdale, defeating Patti Knezevic of Prince George 9-6 in the championship game.
Scott—along with third Jeanna Schraeder, second Sasha Carter and first-year lead Sarah Wazney—was in control of the final from the outset, scoring a deuce in the first, three more in the third and stealing another in the fourth for a 6-1 lead. Knezevic fought back with deuces in the fifth and eighth ends, but was never able to push the Scott rink out of its comfort zone in the final.
“It’s tough to defend with that four-rock, free-guard zone so I think we did as good a job as possible with that,” Scott said. “Our team was bang on with the peeling, we maintained control of the game, thank goodness.”
Scott is the first rink ever to win four straight B.C. women’s titles, breaking a tie with Kimberley’s Ina Hansen who won three in a row from 1962 to 1964.
“Being champion always feels great, we’ll take that any day,” said Scott. “It’s hard to think it’s been four in a row, that’s for sure. Sasha (Carter) said this never gets old, every single one of them is as exciting as the first.”
Scott, whose six career B.C. titles is also a record, posted a 7-2 round robin record, then defeated Knezevic 8-7 in 11 ends in the Page 1-2 playoff game to advance to the final for the fourth straight year.
Scott, who has won the Canadian championship twice and world title once, brought Sarah Wazney on board this season to replace former lead Jacquie Armstrong, who stepped aside to tend to family and work matters.
Scott has watched her team come together at the ideal time of year.
“We worked really hard on the team component over the last month and I really think we saw it pay off this week,” Scott explained. “We had games where we were down and had to come back and games where we had to hang on to the lead and we had great team chemistry. I love these girls.”
The Scott team will make its eighth appearance at the Canadian championship when they travel to Kingston, Ont., Feb. 16 to 24 for the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
