THUNDER BAY – Lakehead skip Hailey Beaudry said she wanted to prove her critics wrong.
Not that anyone was openly shooting down her team’s chances at the U Sports 2017 university women’s curling championship.
But unlike the rest of the competition, her spot at the Fort William Curling Club competition was guaranteed. The other seven teams had to earn their way to Thunder Bay.
Beaudry on Wednesday erased any doubts she belonged.
Her Thunderwolves foursome, which includes lead Erin Tomalty, second Emily Cooney and third Kendra Lemieux, rebounded from a heartbreaking 10th-end loss Tuesday night to reigning Canadian junior champion Kristen Streifel, downing Team Alberta 7-5 in a semifinal rematch and will play for gold on Wednesday afternoon in an all-Northern Ontario final against Laurentian’s Krysta Burns.
Burns pummelled Lakehead 11-2 in round-robin play. But that’s in the past, Beaudry said.
“We’re pretty excited, it’s pretty surreal,” she said.
“I know coming into this a lot of people thought we were just the host team. We were like, ‘Nope, we’re going to show them that we are here.”
Lemieux said knocking off Alberta was not going to be easy.
“They’re a really good team and we knew coming in we were going to have to play our best to be able to beat them. We killed it. We played our best and we were able to read the ice really well and get our draw weight down.”
Streifel, who curled just 57 per cent, struggled in the early going, giving up a steal in the third end and trailed 3-1.
The Alberta skip scored two in the fourth to even the match, but Beaudry made a draw for two in the fifth to go up 5-3 at the break.
The Thunderwolves squad forced Streifel to a single in the sixth to take back the hammer, then Beaudry made a tough draw through traffic to restore the two-point lead in the seventh. Streifel got to within one again in the eight, her draw just hanging on for the single.
Beaudry had a chance to put the game away in the ninth, attempting to pick out Alberta’s shot rock to score multiple points. But Streifel’s stone jammed and Beaudry had to settle for one. The Thunderwolves team ran the Pandas out of rocks in the 10th and shook after Beaudry’s second shot removed the only Alberta rock remaining in play.
Laurentian downed Dalhousie University 8-3 in the other semifinal.
Dalhousie and Alberta will play for bronze.
On the men’s side, Alberta downed UPEI 9-2 and will take on Memorial University for the championship. The Newfoundland and Labrador team scored two in the 10th to edge the University of Regina 8-7 in the other semifinal.
UPEI and Regina will battle for gold.
