Wheatcroft Too Much For Englot

Michelle Englot had her hands full with Georgina Wheatcroft's B.C. team in their B event match early Sunday. Wheatcroft stole a single in the first end, and held Englot to a single in the second. Then, after an exchange of singles made the score 2-2, Wheatcroft scored a deuce in the fifth, and stole two more in the sixth and another in the seventh for a 7-2 win.

Wheatcroft remains in the B event with a good chance to qualify; Englot drops to the C event and must win two games in a row to reach the quarterfinals.

The A event qualifiers were played Saturday night after my last post. Cheryl Bernard scored 3 in the first and 5 more in the third against Shannon Kleibrink, to grab one of the quarterfinal spots with a 10-2 score. Meanwhile, Rachel Homan and her team from Ottawa scored 4 in the first end and never trailed against Grande Prairie's Crystal Webster, winding up with an 8-5 victory and a quarterfinal spot of their own.

I've been following women's curling since Georgina Wheatcroft was Georgina Hawkes and she's always been one of my favourites. Whenever I've heard players talk about "George", they've always had good things to say. You could say "she's one of the really great people in the game, and a fine player, too" and nobody would disagree with you. I would cheer for George against almost anybody.

And so ... best wishes to Michelle and her team, as always, and almost-best wishes to Georgina and her team. I'd love to see them both in the playoffs, and I'm glad they didn't meet in the C. At least not yet, anyway.

Next up for Michelle: Karen Powell of Grande Prairie. Next for Georgina: a B event qualifier against Crystal Webster. There's a lot more curling to come. And I'll be back.