Sarah Wark will live to fight another day at the 2019 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Wark’s Team B.C. curling crew won a do-or-die match against Manitoba’s Tracy Fleury Thursday morning.
Joined by Kristen Pilote (third), Carley Sandwith (second) and Jen Rusnell (lead), Wark beat Fleury 8-5 and is one of eight teams moving on at the national women’s curling championship.
“Coming in here, if you would have told us at the beginning of the week that we would have been playing a tiebreaker for a spot in the championship round we would have been thrilled,” Wark told Kyle Jahns of curling.ca. “To go out there and finally put together a good game, I think all four of us were sort of on the same page and we hadn’t really had that yet this week.”
Wark’s team set the tone in the second end with a steal of three, and stole three more in the eighth end. The four women were 86 per cent accurate with their shooting, a good sign as they look toward the next round.
“I think all of us really want to push for wins at this point. We came here wanting to put together good games and to play like we know we can. Going forward we want to keep this roll that we just started this morning,” Wark said.
Team B.C. dives right into championship pool play, facing Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan today (Thursday) and then tackling the wildcard entry (Alberta’s Casey Scheidegger) Friday morning. Wark’s last match will be against Jennifer Jones and Team Canada Friday afternoon (3:30 PST) with the top four (out of eight) teams qualifying for Saturday’s playoffs.