KITCHENER, Ont. — Competing at a tournament of this calibre at so young an age, it is without a doubt that Laura Crocker has a bright future ahead of her. With an average age of 23, Team Crocker is the youngest team going into the Road to the Roar Olympic pre-trials tournament, with Crocker being only 22-years old.
“We are the youngest team here,” Crocker said. “We kind of believed in ourselves the whole way and knew that we could get here if we played well enough and we did that.”
After pulling off a come-from-behind victory, in which Crocker stole two points to tie the draw at six points a piece, and then scored four more in extra ends to take the draw 10-6, Crocker and her teammates were feeling confident coming into their second matchup versus the third-seed Renee Sonnenberg, also from Edmonton, Ont.
“We never gave up, that’s for sure,” Crocker said. “We were in a really tough situation. Having to steal two in the 10th is something that doesn’t happen very often, but we just kind of got together and said, ‘We have eight more shots, let’s make eight and see what happens.’”
Team Horgan missed her draw in the tenth end with the hammer, allowing Crocker to steal two coming into extra ends, and then captured the win after managing another steal for four points.
“It was really just about persevering in that end.”
Coming into the second draw of the day, Sonnenberg led the draw 4-1 after four ends, but Crocker was not ready to throw in the towel just yet. After scoring three points in the fifth and sixth ends respectively, including a steal for two points, the two teams remained tied until the ninth end when Crocker seemingly allowed Sonnenberg to steal a point so that she can keep the hammer coming into the final end.
However, in an attempt to achieve the same results as she did in her draw in the morning, Crocker was not so lucky this time.
“The ice changed a lot throughout that game,” Crocker explained. “It got very frosty out there and we were trying really hard to battle through the conditions and we just didn’t.”
“We didn’t pick up on it as quickly as we needed to.”
Crocker also believes that consistency is the answer to her success coming into future matchups.
“With the way that the ice conditions are, it’s very tricky, and we’re not throwing it the same every time, and that’s what’s making it a little bit difficult,” she said. “So if we can just be a little bit more consistent, I think we’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Crocker continues her run for a trip to the Winnipeg trials Thursday, where she faces off against Team Auld at 2 p.m. at the Kitchener Auditorium.
