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Inglis foursome finishes fourth at Canadian Seniors

The Yorkton-based curling team of skip Cathy Inglis, third Pat Kuspira, second Donna Liebrecht and lead Bev Fuches recently spent an entire week – from Saturday, March 21 to Saturday, March 28 – competing at the 2015 Everest Canadian Seniors curling
Cathy Inglis
Cathy Inglis of the Yorkton Curling Club did a great job representing Saskatchewan at the 2015 Canadian Seniors in Edmonton March 21-28. Team Inglis finished 9-3, improving on their 2013 record of 5-6, to finish fourth overall.

The Yorkton-based curling team of skip Cathy Inglis, third Pat Kuspira, second Donna Liebrecht and lead Bev Fuches recently spent an entire week – from Saturday, March 21 to Saturday, March 28 – competing at the 2015 Everest Canadian Seniors curling tournament in Edmonton, Alberta.

While there the team compiled a record of 9-3 and finished just off of the podium in fourth place overall in their second appearance at the Senior National tournament, having previously competed back in 2013 in Summerside, P.E.I. where they finished eighth overall with a record of 5-6. “It was wonderful to be able to go back (to the Canadian Seniors) knowing what was in store due to playing in 2013 in P.E.I.,” Inglis said. “That experience helped us a great deal. We started off really strong because we were a little bit more prepared this time than we were in 2013.”

Starting strong might be a little bit of an understatement as Team Inglis flew out of the starting blocks quickly, pummelling Team Quebec (Elaine Roy) 12-2 in their first game on Saturday the 21st before dropping Team Northwest Territories (Debbie Moss) 7-1 in their second Saturday game.

Sunday saw the ladies from the prairies defeat Northern Ontario (Peggy Taylor) 7-1 and New Brunswick (Shelly Graham) 8-3 to move to 4-0 in the ‘A’ Pool before wins on Monday (12-4 over Nunavut’s Beverly Ford) and Tuesday (5-4 over Nova Scotia’s Colleen Jones) saw them go to 6-0 to wrap up the ‘A’ Pool competition in first place in the first-ever ‘A’ Pool competition. “They were trying a new format and they used our senior Canadians to use it where they let all of the teams in and they put the teams in two pools of seven,” offered Inglis via phone interview. “So you play your six games for round-robin, so for us that was two on Saturday, two on Sunday, one on Monday and one on Tuesday.

“After that the top four teams from each pool went into what was called the Championship Pool and through that each team there had a chance to get to the finals.”

The perfect record thru the first six games meant that Team Inglis carried three wins over to the Championship Pool where Saskatchewan was joined by fellow ‘A’ Pool members Quebec (Roy), Nova Scotia (Jones) and Northern Ontario (Taylor) and four ‘B’ Pool teams in B.C. (Sandra Jenkins), Alberta (Terri Loblaw), Manitoba (Kim Link) and Newfoundland and Labrador (Laura Phillips).

Inglis and company opened up Championship Pool play with their first loss of the tournament, conceding defeat to Team B.C. (Jenkins) 7-2 before rallying back with three straight wins 8-7, 5-4 and 6-5 respectively over Newfoundland and Labrador (Phillips), Manitoba (Link) and Alberta (Loblaw).

The three straight victories lifted Team Inglis to 6-1 and first overall in Championship Pool play and a spot in Saturday’s semi-finals against fourth ranked Alberta (Loblaw) in a sudden death playoff.

Things didn’t go the Yorkton ladies’ way Saturday morning as Team Alberta, spurred on by the boisterous home province support, sent Team Saskatchewan to the bronze medal game with a 9-3 Alberta victory.

Normally Team Saskatchewan – thanks to their first place finish thru round-robin – would have still had another shot at the gold medal game due to the page playoff format. However, as Inglis had previously stated, this year the Canadian Seniors were testing out a new format meaning no second opportunity. “They didn’t use the page system which they used to use where we would have had two tries to get to the final,” Inglis told Yorkton This Week. “Unfortunately they used the system of two semifinals with one playing four and two playing three so we didn’t get that second chance but that’s okay.”

Team Saskatchewan/Team Inglis couldn’t recover from their semi-final defeat as well as their bronze medal game opponents did, falling to Team Alberta (Jenkins) 7-6 to finish fourth overall.

But not everything was doom and gloom for Team Inglis in their final days at the Canadian Seniors. On top of finishing with an impressive 9-3 record overall two members of the team were also recognized for their outstanding tournaments. “We definitely thought we played as good as we could and actually we were rewarded, too,” boasted Inglis, continuing, “Donna Liebrecht, second on our team, she got all-star second and I got all-star skip, so that says a lot too about how we as a team played.”

Overall though, Inglis feels herself as well as her team enjoyed their time representing the province of Saskatchewan; even if the name ‘Team Saskatchewan’ comes with some pressure. “It’s good to represent Saskatchewan but there is a lot of pressure in some ways playing for Saskatchewan because you’re expected to do well,” said Inglis. “Saskatchewan is still pretty strong in the curling world and so you want to do well because you’re representing the ones that you had eliminated to get there and wearing that green and white, you want to do well for all the curlers that would love to take your place.

“I think we did that. We played better than they ever have. We were ready for the tournament and really showed up to play all week and put a great week together and it’s something that I think we’ll remember for our whole lives.”