The Waterloo Warriors' women's curling team won the silver medal in Fredericton, New Brunswick, bringing home the university's first U SPORTS team medal of the season. This is the second medal for the Warriors this season after finishing with the OUA Bronze with skip
Celia Evans (Burton/), third
Shannon Warriner (Burlington/), second
Julia Evans (Burton/), and lead
Violet French (Ottawa/).
In the semifinal match-up, UNB had the advantage as the game was played on their home sheets at the Capital Winter Club. This did not deter the Warriors, as they had their eyes set on making it to the gold medal game later in the afternoon. The Warriors established an early advantage against the host UNB Reds with a significant five-end score in the second end. Although UNB narrowed the margin to a two-score game with a double in the seventh end, the Warriors' triple in the eighth prompted early handshakes as they emerged victorious with a 12-7 win.
The Warriors faced the Alberta Pandas in the gold medal match. Alberta went undefeated (7-0) in the round robin and was looking to take home their second consecutive U SPORTS Championship banner.
In the women's gold medal game, Waterloo got off to a great start, stealing the opening two ends to take an early 2-0 lead. Gray-Withers' draw for two helped the Pandas even the score in the third end, 2-2. Waterloo avoided a steal of three by the Pandas in the fourth after skip
Celia Evans (Burton/) made a tremendous double takeout to score one and regain the lead, 3-2. However, a missed shot from Evans on her final stone in the fifth allowed Alberta to draw for three and take the lead, 5-3, heading into the fifth-end break. The Pandas then forced Waterloo into a draw for a single before scoring another triple in the seventh end, increasing their lead to 8-4.
The Warriors made things interesting down the final stretch, scoring a single in the eighth end before stealing two from the Pandas in the ninth, closing the gap to just a one-point Alberta lead heading into the tenth end. In the final frame, the Warriors tried to even the score, but with Alberta lying three and holding the hammer, Evans' final stone came up short. The Pandas went on to win the game 10-7, securing back-to-back U SPORTS women's titles.
