St. Ben's lady curlers take city title

Trailing 5-2 after the fourth end, the three-peat championship title appeared to be in jeopardy for skip Chloe Gordon and the St. Benedict Bears girls curling team.

Through her first two years of secondary school competition, Gordon had been near flawless, capturing SDSSAA banners as both a Grade 9 and Grade 10 student at the south end school.

On Wednesday at the Sudbury Curling Club, the Bears were facing a tough Lasalle Lancers quartet, being led by the back end duo of Robyn Beaudry and Avryl Evans.

But the Bears fought back, capping off a 10-0 regular season record with a playoff championship after posting a come from behind 7-6 win over Lasalle. Gordon was joined, once again, by the tandem of Cassandra Rees and Carolyn Graham, while Sebrina Frappier stepped in as lead for the first time. Along with Beaudry and Evans, the Lasalle lineup included Kylie Keyes, Mackenzie Kedwell, Amber Todey and Jessica Simpson.

St. Benedict and Lasalle finished first and second in the regular season standings. Both teams will travel to Sturgeon Falls this week to represent the Sudbury region at the NOSSA curling championships.

In boys action, the St. Benedict boys got on a roll early, beating Lockerby (10-4) and upsetting the top-seeded Lo-Ellen Park Knights (8-2), but ran out of steam in the final, overmatched by the Lasalle Lancers.

Lasalle skip Kyle Kirby and company jumped out to a 9-0 lead after four ends and held on to defeat the Bears 9-3.

Kirby, along with Matt Peloquin, Jake Therrien, John Kosiw and Matt Tensley, bounced the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères 11-3 before derailing the St. Benedict quartet.

Lasalle will be joined at NOSSA by the Lo-Ellen Park boys, who secured their berth thanks to a first place regular season finish, edging the Lancers for top spot. The Knights finished with a record of 9-0-1, only slightly better than the Lancers who slid into second place with a mark of 9-1.