Salmon Arm’s Team Belway delivered their first stone in the B.C. U18 Curling Championships on Tuesday, vying for a spot in the national championships.
The best young curlers from around the province have descended on the Juan de Fuca Curling Centre in Victoria for the championships, which run March 12 to 17.
In 2018, the Salmon Arm Curling Centre hosted the U18 event, with Salmon Arm-Vernon hybrid Team Colwell coming just shy of qualifying for finals after a late-end upset.
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The team from Salmon Arm competing in the girls’ event at the 2019 championships is made up of skip Maya Belway, lead Abbigail Paetsch, second Madison Pentilla and third Danielle Paetsch.
They qualified to compete in the B.C. Championships during playdowns hosted in Ashcroft in February, defeating Team Brissette to claim one of the final berths to the provincial event.
In their first draw on Tuesday, Team Belway faced Team McCrady, a mixed team of members from Langley and Chilliwack.
Team Belway was up by three points with a 3-0 lead right from the start, adding to that lead consistently while preventing a single point for McCrady. The final score of the game was a 10-0 victory for Team Belway, with the game called early in the sixth end.
Their second game on March 12 was against Team Hafeli, from Kamloops. The Salmon Arm rink took an early lead in the first two ends, but a draw in the third signalled a turning point and Team Hafeli managed to tally up a lead with single points over three ends and a two-point finish to win 5-4 in the eighth end.
Team Belway was scheduled to play two more games today, March 13, first against the Juan de Fuca / Delta Team Bowles at 1 p.m. and then against Team Richards from Comox Valley at 7 p.m.
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A good placement in the provincial event qualifies the team to compete in the U18 national event, which is scheduled for April 2 to 7 in Sherwood Park, Alta.
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