‘Valuable’ victory for Ursel

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This article was published 19/01/2015 (4148 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Terry Ursel hoped to build her team’s confidence up a little more before heading into the Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts, and that’s exactly what she did at the Brandon Ladies’ Bonspiel on the weekend.

Ursel and her Lansdowne Curling Club team of Wanda Rainka, Lisa Davie and Darla Hanke played five solid games at the Brandon and Riverview clubs and went on to win the 79th annual event by edging Stacey Fordyce of Brandon 7-6 in Sunday’s A-event final.

“This is really valuable,” said Ursel, who lives in Eden and won the 2011 Brandon bonspiel. “It was really good for us to get out and have some games as a team. We haven’t had a bonspiel together for a while, so it was really good.”

“This bonspiel is always fun and lots of good competition,” she continued. “It’s nice because there’s 32 teams; it’s a big bonspiel compared to a lot we play in, so it’s nice.”

Ursel’s team has had a solid season, finishing 13th in the Manitoba Curling Tour’s point standings and winning $915 along the way. They reached the semifinals at the MCT championship bonspiel to secure a spot at provincials, which begins Wednesday in Winkler.

In Brandon, Ursel steamrolled to the A-event final — including an 11-4 win in the semifinals over Dauphin’s Tiffany McLean, who will also be at the Scotties — before coming across Fordyce, who is in Ursel’s pool in Winkler.

Ursel dug herself a hole by giving up four in the third end, but got lucky in the sixth end when Fordyce was heavy with her draw and gave up a steal of three. Ursel stole in the seventh when Fordyce’s hit didn’t curl enough to lead 7-5 and watched Fordyce’s draw for two in the eighth crash on a guard up front to secure the win and the $300 grand prize.

“We haven’t curled (Fordyce) this year,” Ursel said. “We’ve seen them lots of places but we’ve never played. It was good to play them.

“That (steal of three) kind of got us back in the game. That four we gave up earlier was a real kick. It only put us a couple down, but we still we had to put some points on the board. (The steal) gave us a fighting chance again.”

Despite the loss, Fordyce felt it was a good weekend for her team.

“We had some really good games,” she said. “We kind of got on a roll there for the weekend. It didn’t end the way we wanted, but we had a really good start to the game and definitely a confidence-builder.”

Ursel and Fordyce will open the Scotties on Wednesday with games against Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones and three-time provincial champion Barb Spencer. McLean will face last year’s finalist Kerri Einarson and three-time Manitoba champion Janet Harvey.

Meanwhile, Courtney Bartok won the B-event final 8-2 over Linda Van Daele and Deb Collyer claimed the C-event crown by sliding past Lois Mosiondz 8-6.

Jaimie Campbell beat Jodi Chubaty 8-1 in the D-event final, while Wenda Aube topped Caryn Edwards 7-5 to claim the E-event.

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