Sports/Curling

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(L-R) vice Jason Scott, skip Wayne Morton, second Katie Kranenburg and lead Jeremy Kranenburg, coach Shelley Bellamy

A local Special Olympics curling team travelled to Welland on Sunday, January 15 to compete in the Special Olympics Ontario OCA South-Western Dominion Tankard Qualifier.  Six teams from across southwestern Ontario met to determine A and B Division winners fro advancement to the provincial final in Stratford on February 12 at the Men's Ontario Qualifier for the Brier.

The Port Elgin rink comprised of skip Wayne Morton, vice Jason Scott, second Katie Kranenburg and lead Jeremy Kranenburg exhibited a strong team effort to win all three of their games to clinch the B Division championship.

After a two-end 'seeding round', Morton's rink began competition in a four-team round-robin format.  Port Elgin faced St. Thomas in the first round and the competition was far closer than the 9-0 victory would imply. 

After the first encouraging win, Morton's team then faced a Hamilton rink in a closer match-up.  The Port Elgin rink prevailed with great team communication to a 5-2 win.

In the third round, Port Elgin met Welland, the local favourites, who were also undefeated.  Port Elgin took the first end and then never looked back.  In the end, Port earned a convincing 7-0 win.  Coaches Don Bowley and Shelley Bellamy agreed it was a very satisfying day of curling.

The Morton rink has reached this level of competition on two other occasions but never reached the reached the level that allowed them to move on to the Provincials.

The team is very escited at the proposed of meeting members of the Geln Howard and Peter Corner rinks, who will be just two of the teams competing at the event to determine the 2012 Ontario entry into the Canadian Brier.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012