Marla Mallett downed her former second, Diane Gushulak, 6-3 to earn the right to represent B.C. at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in St. Catherines, Ont., Feb. 18-26.
Mallett and her Golden Ears club teammates Shannon Aleksic at third, second Brette Richards and lead Blaine de Jager, used deuces in the sixth and ninth ends and closed it out with a steal of one in the 10th.
“It’s been a long week. We played really well all week. We were good and solid and stayed within our processes. We got to where we wanted to be, in the final, and finished it off,” Mallet told Shaw TV after the win.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been in the final and after having taken two years off, I got lucky. I got an offer I couldn’t pass up from these girls and came here and we did what we needed to do,” she said of her team, which includes Gerry Richard as coach.
The foursome topped the round-robin portion of the tournament with a 6-1 record, then defeated Lindsay Hudyma in the Page 1-2 game Saturday to advance straight to the championship.
Gushulak — and her team of Grace MacInnes (who was also part of that 2009 B.C. championship team with Mallett), Jessie Sanderson and Sandra Comadina — took the long route.
Having to win a tiebreaker Friday night, then the Page 3-4 game Saturday and Sunday morning’s semifinal, 6-4 over Hudyma, the Royal City rink ran out of gas in the final.
Hudyma’s rink, included Victoria Curling Centre members Stephanie Jackson-Baier and Carley Sandwith at second and lead, respectively, and third Holly Donaldson, placed third.
Elsewhere, Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville and Prince Edward Island’s Robyn MacPhee have won their way into the Canadian women’s curling championship field.
McCarville defeated Tracy Fleury 10-6 to take the Northern Ontario title in Nipigon.
Defending champion Chelsea Carey of Calgary, Quebec’s Eve Belisle, Yukon’s Sarah Koltun, Kerry Galusha of Northwest Territories and Geneva Chislett of Nunavut have already qualified for this year’s Scotties. The remaining seven teams have yet to be determined.
