Stratton pair off to national curling championships

Ken Johnston

A pair of Stratton ladies will be competing in the Canadian National Women’s University Curling Championships March 26-30, 2003 in Regina, Sask.
Lisa Bolen and Danielle Shrumm competed two weekends ago in a bonspiel hosted by the University of Manitoba and won it. As part of a four member team, Bolen played third and Shrumm second. Skipping the team was Jennifer Sheppard and playing lead was Alicia Pearson, both of Winnipeg.
Bolen had curled with Sheppard last year in the Junior Women’s, at which they made the semi-finals. She also curled with Shrumm for two years while attending Rainy River High School. In 1999 they were members of the historic team that won the Ofssa or All Ontario championships. They also went to nationals that year for Junior Ladies.
This being Shrumm’s first year at the U. of M., they hooked up again and started yet another curling crusade. However, they did not expect the results to be so good, so soon. “We never thought we would be back together at this level so soon!”
The fourth member of the team, Alicia Pearson, had not curled with either Bolen or Shrumm before and with little opportunity to practise together, Bolen was worried about how things would go. “I figured we would have fun and maybe a good showing. But after the first practise I thought maybe it would not be too bad in competition.” Bolen explained that normally teams practise together enough to get sweeping signals down and stop watch usage to judge the ice and shooter’s weight better.
To Bolen’s surprise the chemistry just clicked. “Danielle and Alicia picked up the rhythm up by the end of the first game.”
Six teams met to compete for the right to advance to the nationals. In their first game, Bolen and Co. handily defeated the Andrews rink 13-2 after 6 ends.
Then in game two they met the team that was favoured to win it all. The skip from that team, Kristen Williamson, was part of Team Manitoba last year and Bolen believes two of the other team members have done some serious competitive curling in the past. Bolen’s team lost on last rocks 4-3. That moved them over to the B side of competition.
In game three they won 11-1 over the Nattrass rink.
Game four was another run away win for them, 9-3, over the Dudenhoffer rink.
After beating all the other competitors, they managed to exact some revenge on the team they lost to. “We played them late in the round robin again and beat them good.” It was a 7-2 victory over Williamson.
Those two teams ended up facing each other for all the marbles.
Sheppard scored one in the first with the hammer. In the second Williamson drew in and scored one to tie it.
In the third Williamson took advantage of a missed take out by Sheppard and picked up a one point lead (2-1).
In the fourth Sheppard drew for 2 to go ahead 3-2. They then then stole two in the fifth to lead 5-2.
In the sixth and seventh Williamson closed the gap to one, scoring one in each end.
Ahead by 1 coming home, Bolen and co. kept peeling rocks. Williamson had to draw in but came up short handing the 5-4 victory to Sheppard, Bolen, Shrumm and Pearson.
The victory was a particularly emotional one for Sheppard. Her father just passed away a month ago from a heart attack. She told the Winnipeg Sun that, “My dad would have been so proud. He had really been looking forward to being here to watch.”
While they are very excited, they are a bit disappointed that the University does not officially recognize Curling as a major sport. With that in mind they will receive very little financial assistance to travel and compete in Regina. Bolen said that they are hopeful that the Manitoba Curling Association might help them out. They are also planning fund raising efforts on campus.
Congratulations and good luck ladies!