KELOWNA, B.C. — For the second straight year, the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks men’s curling team will play for the most prestigious award in university sport — a Canadian Interuniversity Sport gold medal.
The medal escaped the Hawks last year when they went toe-to-toe with the Alberta Golden Bears, dropping a close 6-4 game in the last gold medal match.
And now, the rink, an exact mirror of last year’s team, will have a chance to get revenge against the highly-touted Golden Bears, who beat the Brock Badgers in their semifinal draw 9-3.
To get there, they had a date with the Victoria Vikes in the semifinal, winning 6-4.
Laurier got off to a quick start when they picked up three with the hammer to take an early lead. After limiting the Vikes to a single point, Laurier picked up a single score to keep the three-point lead.
After a blanked fourth end, the two teams traded singles twice up until the eighth end when the Vikes blanked again. But the game was out of reach, as Laurier took over in the tenth end and just kept peeling away the Victoria stones until there was none left.
And just like that, Laurier earned a berth into the gold medal game.
Fifth-year vice Richard Krell has been shooting lights-out in Kelowna. In the final round robin game against the Waterloo Warriors, Krell shot 100 per cent. During the semifinal matchup, Krell and skip Aaron Squires shot 86 per cent, while Fraser Reid shot 83 per cent and Spencer Nuttall shot 76 per cent.
And with the Golden Bears waiting, the Hawks have to maintain their shooting accuracy if they hope to create a better fate than last year.
The draw begins at 5:30 p.m. eastern time. You can check it out on Twitter via @cordsports or on our live blog.
