WINGHAM – They made it look easy.
The Listowel high school girls’ curling team steam rolled the competition on Wednesday, Feb. 24 en route to their second-straight Huron-Perth championship.
They entered the four-team tournament held at the Wingham Golf and Curling Club as the favourites and wasted no time showing why.
Skip Cassie Savage, lead Karley Robertson, vice Sarah Nuhn and second Abbey Bender combined to demolish the competition: 13-0 over Stratford Northwestern, 22-0 against Goderich and finished with a 16-1 final against host F.E. Madill.
After winning gold at the Perth tournament in St. Marys two weeks prior, they parlayed that experience into a convincing showing at the cross-county clash.
“As a team we played the best we’ve ever played,” Bender said.
“We played really good,” Savage agreed.
Now the group advances to WOSSAA, the best of the west, slated for March 9-10.
In 2009 the team finished second at this event. Silver at such a high-level tournament is nothing to complain about, it meant not qualifying for the next stage: OFSAA.
“They were really good last year (at WOSSAA),” Robertson recalled.
This time around Listowel plans on taking the title and moving on to the provincials. The path to winning the western Ontario war could be easier now since most of the top players on the more potent teams have since graduated.
“It will be all new competition,” Savage said.
A unique aspect of the Listowel entry is their ages, with Nuhn in Gr. 9, Robertson Gr. 10, Savage Gr. 11 and Bender, the elder of the group, in Gr. 12.
On the boys’ side, Listowel skip Ryan Erb, lead Devon Martin, vice Thomas Mayes and second Lee Mayes lost 8-4 to St. Marys, 11-3 to Madill and 9-2 to South Huron.