LITTLE CURRENT, Ont. – Krysta Burns and Krista McCarville seemed destined to wind up in Sundays’ final at the Northern Ontario Women’s Curling Championship.
They played for the title in 2020, and after each team took the region’s spot at the Scotties Tournament Hearts once during the pandemic, they did it again last year.
Both times McCarville came out on top.
Burns, a former bronze medallist at the Canadian Junior Curling Championships, is confident her team can get the job done in 2024, nearly knocking off her Thunder Bay rival in the round-robin, only to have McCarville rally with a pair in the 10th to narrowly squeak out a 7-6 triumph.
That was then.
The 27-year-old Burns, who earned a berth in the finale after beating Laura Johnston 9-5 on Saturay night at the Little Current Recreation Centre, a game she led 5-0 after three ends, only to have her opponent close the gap to one in the fifth, said she’s confident she can get the job done.
“I think we just have to focus on what we do well, which is just to have a good time as a team. Our team dynamics are really good, and we just have to take the pressure off of us, because its definitely on the other team,” said Burns, whose team includes lead Laura Masters, second Sara Guy and third Jestyn Murphy.
“Being the underdog, it kind of makes the game more fun.”
McCarville is the more decorated curler, with 10 Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearances under her belt.
She’ll also have choice of rocks and hammer to start the championship, which gets under way at 9 a.m. on Sunday.
McCarville rolled into the final with a 5-0 record, capping her perfect round-robin with a 7-1 win over Jackie McCormick on Saturday night, stealing her way to a 4-0 lead with singles without hammer in the third, fourth and fifth ends.
Despite her success against Burns in recent years, the 41-year-old isn’t taking anything for granted.
“They’re a great team,” McCarville said. “We know we have to play really well against them. We want to come out and learn the ice really quickly. We want to learn the draw weight really quickly and just kind of keep doing what we’ve been doing all week and battling through, plucking along and getting those deuces when it’s important.”
Adapting to the changes in ice conditions has been the key to success for the team, which went back to the hotel on Saturday night to determine the lineup for the championship game, Team McCarville employing a five-woman rotation with Sudbury’s Kendra Lilly and Thunder Bay’s Ashley Sippala, who sat against McCormick, and Sarah Potts subbing in and out of the lineup.
McCarville and New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly, a Scotties skip in her own right, are locks on the team’s back end.
“I think we’ve been really good this year mapping out where we played and what the speed should be. I think that’s what we’ve done really well this week.”
It turns out Burns needed the win to avoid a tiebreaker.
Thunder Bay’s Robin Despins, who lost a close one to Burns earlier in the week, edged Timmins’ Lauren Mann 7-4 in her final round-robin game and finished at 3-2. Burns’ win vaulted her to 4-1, but a loss would have resulted in a tiebreaker for the right to take on McCarville.
The final begins at 9 a.m.
