A Yukon curling team has swept up a second-straight silver at the Pacific International Cup in Richmond, B.C.
Team Williams, which won the territory’s first silver at last year’s bonspiel, repeated the feat at the 17th annual event on Sunday.
“It’s a lot of fun and a great level to be playing at too, (against) teams we’re competitive with all the way along,” said skip Tyler Williams. “There was great parity in the field. The only game Australia lost all week was to Texas and it was Texas’ only win of the week, so it really showed anybody could beat anybody on any given day and it made it a fun event.”
The rink, which included third Richard Weihers, second Dave Rach and lead Bob Walker, placed second in the event’s international pool that included numerous American states as well as Australia and New Zealand. (Whitehorse’s Scott Williamson played second for the Yukon men’s rink last year.)
It was the fifth medal won by a Yukon team at the competition with two bronze collected in 2013 and a bronze at the inaugural event in 2000.
Yukon went 6-1 in round robin play and advanced to the final with an 8-4 win over Team Washington in the semi.
“It was a nice accomplishment for us ... that’s a solid Washington team,” said Williams, 29.
Yukon then fell 10-3 to Team Australia in the international pool’s final on Sunday. (Yep, apparently there’s curling down under.)
“A couple of them are Aussies living in Canada ... A couple of them curl out of Melbourne,” said Williams.
The annual “grass roots” curling event for club-level teams also includes a B.C. pool that decides the team that will represent the province at next season’s Travelers Curling Club Championship. Comox Valley, the winning B.C. rink in the Travelers’ pool, defeated Australia in the cross-over final to claim the Cup.
On the other side of the championship, Yukon’s Laura Eby, Lorna Spenner, Janine Peters and Deb Enoch went 2-5 in the women’s international pool with a pair of close losses.
Team Eby produced a 9-7 win over Oregon on opening day on April 13 following a 6-5 loss to Washington. After a 7-6 loss to Australia on April 14, the Eby crew notched an 11-3 win over Colorado last Friday. They finished with a tight 7-6 loss to California on Saturday.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com