NEW GLASGOW – Although Krista Nix and her team haven’t competed as much this season as they have in the past, she said her team feels confident heading into this weekend’s NSCA under-18 Curling Championships in Chester.
Last weekend the team travelled to Sackville, N.B. where they went 2-2 in a warm-up bonspeil for the under-18 championship. Although the New Glasgow based rink hoped for a better finish, Nix said there were some positives.
“We definitely learned that even though we haven’t been playing as much against competitive teams our age that we can still keep up with them and compete,” she said. “We’ve mostly just been playing during league play and practicing, but we’ve still improved from last year and we’re confident heading into the weekend.”
This season Nix is still throwing the brick, while Casey Romain is throwing third stones, Taryn Roy at second and Sarah Livingston throwing lead. Nix, Romain and Roy have played together for the past number of years, but this is the first season Livingston has played competitive and with their team. Nix said she’s fit in well.
“The three of us have played together for awhile, but Sarah joined us for the first time this year after being a part of the junior program,” said Nix. “She’s been great and fit in well with our team. She’s improved a lot this year and you wouldn’t know now that she hadn’t played with us before.”
The team said there are always a few adjustments playing teams their age compared to adult teams during league play in New Glasgow. Romain said the team likes to be more defensive against some of the junior teams. Nix agreed, saying their hitting is strong and will help them this weekend.
“We don’t like to get too many rocks in play when we’re playing against some of these teams,” said Romain. “We’re able to try out more against club teams, but we want to be in every game in these tournaments and not give up any big ends. We want to play full games against every team and hopefully pick up a few wins.”
This weekend they open play at 10:30 a.m. against Breanna Huntley’s rink from the Windsor Curling Club. Last year Nix and her team finished fourth at u-18’s and third at Atlantics as the host team.
This year they hope to open the tournament strong and build on it. Nix said improved communication should help them out.
“We’ve really worked on improving our communication this year throughout the game,” said Nix. “I’ve become louder and they are letting me know the weight more, which helps me in the house. We started calling out numbers for zones (within the hog line) last year, which we’ve gotten better at and it’s helped us cut down on some of our misses.”
christopher.cameron@ngnews.ca
On Twitter: @NGNewsChris
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