The road to another national medal ended for both the RDC Kings and Queens on Tuesday in Leduc at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association Curling Canada Championships.
After winning the CCAA gold medal last year, the Queens finished the event 3-4 and failed to qualify for the medal round at nationals in 2018.
The Kings also missed out on the playoffs, finishing the week with a 1-6 record. Their only win of the event came on Tuesday in draw 7, 9-8 against the Niagara Knights. The RDC men won bronze at the 2017 CCAA Curling Championships.
“In the past we had geared our season for nationals and hadn’t put a whole lot of emphasis on provincials,” said RDC Curling head coach Brad Hamilton.
“We hadn’t won provincials for a long time, this year we tried to switch things up and go hard for provincials. The girls won gold there and the men won silver. I don’t know if it was too long a season for us, the men looked like they ran out of steam.”
The Queens playoff hopes faded with a tough 8-6 loss to the MacEwan University Griffins in draw 6. The Griffins had a huge steal of four points in the eighth end to seal the win. RDC lead Katie Primrose curled 93 per cent in the game.
“I think the arena ice and high expectations maybe, it was like their minds were swirling a little bit. We didn’t play like we could, which was a little bit frustrating. Went 3-4 and didn’t play up to our potential,” Hamilton said.
In the final draw Tuesday, the Queens needed a win to force a tiebreaker but fell 13-5 to the previously winless Fleming College Knights. The Knights scored five in the ninth end to close out the victory.
Hamilton said the Kings just ran into some tough competition and lost several close games along the way which kept them out of medal contention.
“They had a bunch of close games, just couldn’t get over the top. Five guys that had never curled together. (Austin Kelts-Larsen) was skipping at college for the first time,” he said.
The head coach added that despite the disappointing finish, it was still a strong season of curling for RDC and he was proud of what the teams were able to accomplish.
“The women are going to hang a banner and the guys got a silver medal, a good year, just not the way we wanted nationals to go. The competition was quite even. If you played bad you were going to lose and if you played well you were going to win,” Hamilton said.
Email sports tips to Byron Hackett
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter