A pair of North Okanagan rinks are through to the B.C. Winter Games, Feb. 20-23, in Mission.
Coldstream’s Thomas Love, who curls with third Erik Colwell (Vernon), second Brendan Chappele (Armstrong) and lead Johnathan Schwartz (Coldstream) won the Juvenile men’s Zone 2 playdowns last weekend in Oliver.
Vernon’s Erin Huitema, backed by third Winter Harvey and front-enders Sarah Huitema and Megan McGillivray, went undefeated to claim the Juvenile women’s side, also in Oliver.
Love, who trains at the Vernon Curling Club, opened the five-team men’s spiel by grounding Vernon’s Team Schiman 8-6, followed by a 10-1 spanking of Team Schafthuizen of Kamloops.
Facing Schafthuizen again in the final at the Eastlink Curling Centre, Love prevailed 8-5.
The Love rink is coached by Dean Chappele, with extra support coming from Kevin Geistlinger.
Huitema rolled three straight wins in the women’s draw, bouncing Salmon Arm’s Lorelei Guidos 8-4, Vernon’s Clare Schmidt 7-3 and Guidos again in the final, 9-7.
Schiman (skip Matt Schiman, third Deven Schmidt, second Ben Morin and lead Matthew Young) opened with a 5-4 win over Kelowna’s Jesse Monette, and bounced back from the loss to Love with a 7-4 grounding of Kamloops’ Jahred Dabels.
The Vernon foursome bowed 7-4 to Schafthuizen in the B Bracket final.
Schmidt, who curls with third Emma Smith, second Jaelyn Cotter, lead Cassidy Schwaerzle and fifth Miranda Chapple, started with a 9-3 win over Kamloops Cierra Fisher and finished with a 9-7 loss to Guidos in the B final.
