A young curler originally from Kitimat is off to a national tournament after winning the 2018 Boston Pizza BC Junior Women’s Curling Championship in Langley Dec. 23.
Taylor Reese-Hansen, also her team’s skip and now living in Victoria, beat a team from Royal City/Delta that had been the Number One team on the BC junior curling circuit to take the provincial title.
Reese-Hansen made a great outturn hit on a partially buried rock to take the game 6-5 in the extra end, indicated information provided the provincial Curl BC organization.
Reese-Hansen, third Catera Park (from Coquitlam), second Jordan Koster, and lead Sydney Brilz, took the long route to the final, indicated Curl BC.
Finishing 4-3 along with two other teams in the round robin, the team was awarded the number 3 spot in the page playoffs because of their head-to-head and last stone draw results against the two other tied teams, tournament information continued.
The team then faced Team Buchy from Kimberley in the page 3-4 playoffs, emerging with an 8-7 win. They beat Team Bowles, who had been the number two team after round-robin play, in the semi-finals 7-3, indicated tournament results provided by Curl BC.
This is Reese-Hansen’s first year as a skip and first BC championship.
“It feels amazing. We had a pretty good season and we thought that we would do fairly well but I don’t think we ever expected this,” Reese-Hansen said after the final.
“We started off the week with two losses and we weren’t even sure we would make playoffs but once we found out we would be in playoffs, everything came together. We probably played the best game of the week in the final. I’m really proud of the team.”
The junior championship tournament saw eight U21 junior men’s teams and eight U21 junior women’s teams play against each other in an eight-team round robin.
Team Reese-Hansen will now represent BC at the 2018 New Holland Canadian Junior Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships from Jan. 13-21. The event will be staged at the Centre municipal de curling de Shawinigan and the Aréna Grand-Mère.
Curl BC is the provincial sport governing body responsible for the development, promotion and organization of curling in British Columbia. Curl BC is also responsible for the championship system that declares provincial representation at national events.