Jill Winters split her matches at the B.C. Women’s Curling Provincials Tuesday in Cloverdale, moving to 1-3 in the round-robin.
The Nelson skip defeated the Adina Tasaka rink of New Westminster 8-3 in her afternoon match, but lost 10-4 in the evening to the tournament-leading Roz Craig rink of Duncan.
Winters is now tied for seventh among the ten teams, and today faces two of the highest ranked rinks in the tournament, including Kelly Scott of Kelowna — the defending champion.
“That will be our big test,” said Winters. “Sometimes you really play up to those teams, though, which is a nice thing.”
The weeklong tournament got off to a rough start Monday, with Winters receiving a 13-3 thumping from Richmond’s Kristy Lewis rink.
Though Winters’ team was up 3-2 after five ends, she said an unfamiliar ice surface was giving both teams some trouble.
“Nobody was really capitalizing on opportunities,” she said. “And we came out after the fifth end and the Lewis team just got their draw weight down and were able to make shots a little bit better than we were.”
A second Monday game against Prince George’s Jen Fewster saw the team continue to struggle with what Winters described as “really quick and really curly” ice.
“You really have to make a concerted effort to come out a lot slower and be a little quieter at draw weight,” she added. “We were getting ourselves into a bit of a hole, and by the time it came to my shots I wasn’t really looking at very much for opportunities.”
The Fewster rink went on to win 10-2, leaving Winters’ team in the bottom three along with the Thompson rink from Kamloops and Nanaimo’s Backe rink.
But Winters thought her team was starting to get a handle on the tricky ice surface, and a rebound could be on the way.
“It’s just a few little tweaks. It’s literally six feet shorter or six feet longer on a draw,” she said. “Really minor adjustments we need to make that I think are going to make a big difference.”
Winters’ rink also features Trail’s Samantha Almquist at third, Natalie Nowicki at second, Castlegar’s Heather Nichol playing lead, and coach Terri Richardson.
The team will be on the ice at 12 and 7 p.m. today and tomorrow, with a final round robin game at 9:30 a.m. Friday. The semifinal and final are set for Saturday and Sunday.