After a hard-fought and somewhat unexpected victory in the Metro Edmonton playdowns, the city-champion SACHS curling team travelled to St. Paul for the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association Provincial Championships.
The tournament, which ran from Wednesday to Saturday at St. Paul Regional High School, brought together the best high school curling teams in the province, all of which had to make it past a series of local competitors in order to qualify.
For the SACHS team, that qualification process involved coming back from a first-round loss in playdowns to win the subsequent six matches, and ultimately the Edmonton Metro Athletics City Championship.
At the outset of the season, such a winning record seemed exceedingly ambitious. While the team’s skip, 11th grader Sophia Gerace, is an experienced junior curler, the rest of the team were playing in their rookie seasons.
Aurora Zanon (second), Mikaylie Wallace (third), Deirdra York (lead), and Avalina Zenari (alt) all made this year a memorable first in the sport.
“We were definitely underdogs, but our skip, who is so knowledgeable about the game, passed on a lot of her knowledge to the team” said Pamela Albert, who, along with Leanne Oake and Ryley Fetter, coached the young Skyhawks group. “We lost our first game in the Metro playdowns, but they just stayed so positive; they just kept going.”
Indeed, when the group dropped their first postseason match 7-3 against Lillian Osborne, reversing course and winning the league seemed like something of a longshot. And yet, just three weeks later, on February 23rd, that longshot came to fruition in an 8-1 win over Paul Kane.
“I believe our team was able to find so much success because right at the beginning of the competition we lost our first game, so every game after that point was life or death,” said Wallace. “We were pushed to work as hard as we could to overcome our opponents, but when it actually came to playing the games, we just had fun. Even though we knew it was a competition, we wanted to share as many laughs and lifelong memories as possible throughout it.”
Despite falling short in their final three matchups of the season, the St. Albert team was able to come out of the tournament with a decisive 12-0 win over Slave-Lake-based Roland Michener Secondary School.
In large part, the SACHS group attributes its success to their cohesion and positive culture.
“We just wanted to have fun and enjoy the sport, and that’s not hard to do when you're cracking jokes with your friends the entire game,” remarked Wallace. “Also, when one of us was down about a shot, the rest of the team was there to lift them back up.”
“Team chemistry was vital to our success this season,” agreed Gerace. “We played to each other’s strengths. We are all really close friends on and off the ice and therefore had a great connection and even better time laughing and enjoying each other’s company and the sport.”
This enduring respect and positivity was felt not only within the group, but also by the team’s competitors.
“This team of girls is like no other,” testified Albert. “Everything that comes out of their mouths is positive and friendly. Every team that they played would comment on their sportsmanship and how great they were. They were just a joy.”
