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FOCUSED GLIDE – Team Yukon third Helen Strong releases a rock at the Canadian Senior Women’s Curling Championships in Stratford, Ont. The team ended with a 1-8 record. Photos by CURLING CANADA

Yukon women’s team glides to one victory

In their first year together as a team, skip Sandra Mikkelsen and her squad represented the Yukon on the women’s side of the national senior curling championships.

By Dustin Cook on April 4, 2018

In their first year together as a team, skip Sandra Mikkelsen and her squad represented the Yukon on the women’s side of the national senior curling championships.

This was the first time at the event for Mikkelsen, who previously skipped a Scotties team in 2000 and was the territory’s alternate at the 2015 event.

The team of Mikkelsen, Helen Strong at third, second Laura Wilson and lead Shani Rittel, were acclaimed to represent the territory, being the only team to sign up for the playdowns in order to qualify for the national event.

In their first major competition together, the team was met with tough world-class competition early taking on the defending champions from Saskatchewan in the first game, skipped by Sherry Anderson.

The Yukon squad dropped the game 9-2 against the eventual champions. Their next test, only three and a half hours after the start of their first draw, was against the experienced Nova Scotia team, eventual runner-ups in the competition. Nova Scotia took the game 13-1.

“Our first day we didn’t do as consistently well, but we got a lot better as the week went on,” Mikkelsen said. “I think we got a lot better as a team and there were a lot of new things to learn.”

The next day of competition was a lot closer for the team playing in three very tightly contested games, dropping all three by two points or less.

They lost their final game of the day 5-4 to Northwest Territories.

In the seeding pool, the team dropped their first game to Prince Edward Island 6-3 before taking on Nunavut, both teams looking for their first win.

“We both wanted a win, both teams really gunning for that game,” Mikkelsen said.

The Yukon team was leading 6-3 after a big score of four in the fifth end and were up 7-4 heading into the eighth and final end with Nunavut having the hammer.

Mikkelsen said she slipped on her first throw and the second rock overcurled allowing a shot for three for the Nunavut skip and a tie game to force an extra end. With the hammer, the Yukon team was able to set up a shot for the win from Mikkelsen leading the team to an 8-7 win.

“That was a good win for us,” she said.

At the end of the tournament, team second Laura Wilson was selected to receive the sportsmanship award out of all the seconds in the competition, which Mikkelsen said was not much of a surprise because Wilson is a “social magnet.”

“Everybody knew Laura by the end of the week,” she said.

Mikkelsen said it was also great to share the experience with the men’s team out of Whitehorse as they were able to watch some of their games and cheer each other on throughout the week.

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