Barrhead Composite High School’s (BCHS) mixed curling team is the best in the province.
On March 7-9, the BCHS mixed curling rink, consisting of skip Jayden Cramer (Grade 11), third Tayler Measures (Grade 12), second Ryley Schaffrick (Grade 10) and lead Keara Cramer, faced the best high school curlers in the province at the Alberta Schools Athletic Association Curling Championships in St. Paul.
The rink, which won silver in 2018, qualified for the championships by going a perfect 4-0 at the North Central Zone competition in Slave Lake two weeks prior.
BCHS opened the tournament March 7 with a 7-4 loss against Archbishop Jordan High School from Sherwood Park.
Coach Krista Measures said the game was closer than the score indicated.
After four ends Barrhead was leading 3-2.
“Then we missed some shots which Archbishop Jordan capitalized on by stealing points in the next three ends,” she said.
Going into the final end, BCHS trailed by 5-4.
However, because BCHS didn’t have last rock, the rink needed to steal a point to force an extra end. Archbishop Jordan scored two to deny them that chance.
In their next game later that day, Barrhead defeated Chestemere, a school outside of Calgary, 7-1, in five ends.
On March 8, BCHS won what on the face of it, was an easy 10-5 win against Fairview.
“The first four ends were great, just back and forth,” Measures said, noting that after four ends BCHS was up 4-2.
In the sixth end, Barrhead took control scoring four and then stole two more in the seventh end.
The next day, the rink played, what was perhaps the most important game of the championships against the host St. Paul.
“If we won we would qualify for the championship rounds if we lost were out,” she said.
After four ends, Barrhead was up 5-4, but they were able to increase their lead after skip Cramer successfully made an angle raise, scoring four on way to a 10-5, seven end win.
In the semi-finals, BCHS faced Lethbridge’s Catholic Central High School.
After getting off to a strong 6-1 start after four ends, Lethbridge crept back into the match.
“We were feeling comfortable, but then we missed some shots, and they were able to tie the game, 6-6 to force an extra end, but we had the hammer and we were able to score our point for the win,” Measures said.
The win put them into the gold medal match against Archbishop Jordan, the team that had beat them to open the tournament.
After four ends, BCHS was up 4-0.
“In our round-robin games, we seemed to lose our lead after four ends so we knew that we had to keep making shots and not let them get lots of points,” she said.
And that is exactly what they did, holding their opponents to two points in the next two ends.
However, in the seventh end, Barrhead found themselves in a potentially precarious position.
“[Archbishop Jordan] was lying one and Jayden [Cramer] had to skinny the guard to hit it out. It was just a great shot,” Measures said, noting the result of the shot was that they scored two points, ending the match 6-4.
She added that the rink was ecstatic to be able to come back and win the championship.
“They were so disappointed losing in the finals last year. They wanted this one really bad. As a coach, I’m so proud of them. They worked so hard and kept battling back,” Measures said, noting the championship was a great way for Tayler Measures to end her high school curling career.
