Semifinals set at CIS/CCA Nationals; award winners announced

The host Thompson Rivers University WolfPack will play in one of the championship semifinals Saturday   at the 2013 CIS/CCA  Curling Championships at the Kamloops Curling Club. The WolfPack men’s team, skipped by Darren Nelson, scored two in the 10th end to upset the University of Waterloo Warriors (Jake Walker) 7-6 in the final round-robin draw of the event. That will set up another showdown between the same teams in the semifinals Saturday at 7 p.m. (all times Pacific). Walker jumped out to a 2-0 lead after two ends, but Thompson Rivers counted singles in the fourth, fifth and sixth ends to take the lead. The teams proceeded to trade deuces the rest of the way, with the WolfPack counting the winning two in the 10th to come away with the victory. Thompson Rivers finished third in the round robin with a 4-3 record. Waterloo fell to 5-2 to finish second. Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher finished first in the round robin with a 6-1 record after the Golden Bears won their final round-robin assignment 9-5 over the Manitoba Bisons (Steen Sigurdson).  Manitoba tied for fourth at 3-4. That was the same record as Dalhousie (Lee Buott), Acadia (Robert Mayhew) and Trent University (Mike Bryson). Dalhousie lost 8-5 to Trent while Acadia took care of the Carleton University Ravens (Brett Lynn-Hatcher) 9-5. Carleton finished in the basement at 1 -6 On the women’s side, Manitoba’s Breanne Meakin went through the round robin unbeaten. She downed the Alberta Pandas (Kelsey Rocque) in a battle of prevously unbeaten teams 4-3 in the final round-robin draw. The Bisons finished with a 7-0 record while Alberta wound up at 6-1. The Pandas will tangle with the Saint Mary’s University Huskies (Sara Spafford) in Saturday night’s semifinal. The Huskies wound up 5-2 in the round robin to finish third, clinching the playoff spot with an 8-7 win over the McMaster University Marauders (Ginger Coyle), who finished with a 3-4 record. Thompson Rivers (Tiffany Krausher) and the UPEI Panthers  (Veronica Smith) finished at 2-5. TRU fell in its final game to the Western University Mustangs (Caitlin Romain) 7-6 while UPEI had little difficulty with the University of Guelph Gryphons, coming away with a 12-4 win. Guelph wound up at 2-5 in the round robin while Western finished in the basement at 1-6. Based on their first-place finishes, Manitoba on the women’s side and Alberta in the men’s draw clinched berths in Sunday’s 2 p.m. gold-medal games. Earlier on Saturday, the CIS-CCA nationals award winners were announced (scroll down for pictures). Making the men’s First All-Canadian team were skip Jake Walker and third Edward Cyr, both of Waterloo; Manitoba second Ian McMillan and Acadia lead Ben Creaser. The Second All-Canadian team was: Alberta’s skip Brendan Bottcher, third Mick Lizmore and second Brad Thiessen, along with Waterloo lead James Freeman. The women’s First All-Canadian team featured Alberta skip Kelsey Rocque, third Keely Brown and second Erica Ortt, as well as Manitoba lead Krysten Karwacki. The women’s Second All-Canadian team consisted of Manitoba’s skip Breanne Meakin, third Ashley Howard and second Selena Kaatz, as well as lead Stephanie Thompson from Western. Earning the CIS Coaching awards were Acadia’s Alan Mayhew (men and Western’s Rory Munro (women), while the Sportsmanship awards went to Acadia second Alex Trites (men) and Western third Jackie Rivington (women). Results, schedule and team information are available at www.curling.ca/championships/university/