Crocker’s trip to Olympic trials comes to an end

KITCHENER, Ont. – Second-seed Laura Crocker successfully defeated twelfth seed Krista McCarville to keep her dream of an Olympic berth alive. Team Crocker managed to come off a loss to eighth-seed Cathy Auld to fend off elimination for the first time in the tournament.

After being in the lead 6-4 coming into the ninth end, Team Auld managed to persevere and stole the game from Team Crocker, winning the draw 7-6 in the 11th end.

“We played well this morning, and we lost because I missed two shots. So all we can really do is keep playing that well and hope that their skipper pulls through for them. We really didn’t have to change anything,” Crocker said regarding motivation after her first draw.

“It’s kind of disappointing to come off of a loss like that in a game that you could win, so we just tried to stay together as a team and stay really motivated and positive, and carry forward the good things in the last game and forget about the bad things.”

Things would be different coming into the evening draw. The draw stayed close until the seventh end when Team Crocker stole five points in a very peculiar end that secured her lead coming into the final end of the draw, winning 10-3.

“Yeah, that was really uncharacteristic of Krista, she’s a very good skip,” Crocker said about the five-point steal. “We got a little lucky when she wasn’t quite on her game tonight, but with that said we did put the pressure on them, we played really well so we’re pleased with that.”

When asked why the draw seemed different than most other matchups, Crocker believed that adaptation to ice conditions is the reason for her team’s success.

“That was a really tricky sheet of ice. It’s a lot different than the rest of the sheets that we played on and I know a lot of teams have struggled with it. It was difficult to make shots in certain places.”

“We figured it out pretty quickly and I think that’s what gave us the advantage is that we figured out the ice really fast,” she added.

Team Crocker took back to the ice Friday morning in a rematch versus Team Horgan, in hopes to stay in the race.

Unfortunately, she would not be as lucky this time around. After falling behind in the sixth end 5-2, Crocker battled back, pulling within a single point in the final end before Horgan captured the draw in a thrilling finish, ending Crocker’s Olympic run.