All the teams at the masters championship played with heart, but two teams now get to wear their hearts on their sleeve, literally.
Karen Lepine and Ralph Will and their teams won Curl B.C.’s masters championships on Sunday at the Nanaimo Curling Centre and advance to nationals.
Lepine, from Langley, and her teammates Susan Beuk, Agnes Sigurdson and Donna Christian, defeated Sandra Gallaway of Comox 11-3 and finished the event with an 8-1 record.
“We stayed together,” Lepine said. “We had the one bad game and we talked about it and came together and communicated and it was really good.”
Lepine, a former champ, said she’s been wanting to get a heart for her sister, who plays third, and it happened Sunday.
“Her eyes were pretty big; that was pretty nice,” Lepine said.
She said the Nanaimo Curling Centre did a fantastic job of hosting the event.
“Everybody’s so friendly and warm and it just makes you feel like part of the group when you walk in the door,” she said.
Sunday’s men’s final was closer, with Will’s Cranbrook team eventually running Chilliwack’s Doug Marshall out of rocks to secure a 7-5 victory. It was a repeat win for Will and company, who rolled through the tourney with a 7-1 record.
“It’s always great to win the heart,” said the skip. “The team played great. We had the odd miss but we hung in there … We just persevered.”
Gerald Kent threw fourth rocks for the winning team and Laddie Pavlis and Peter Sweetman are the other members of the rink. Will said he and his team enjoyed the event.
“It was a fantastic week. The ice was great and we couldn’t have asked for anything better,” the skip said.
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