Vernon rinks were in playoff contention heading into Saturday afternoon draws at the inaugural B.C. U18 Championships in Nanaimo.
Thomas Love was 3-0 atop the four-team B division, while Vernon clubmate Adam Raber was 2-1 in the A.
Love, backed by third Erik Colwell, second Brendan Chapple and lead Logan Miron (coached by Dean Chapple) stopped Hayato Sato of Cloverdale 5-2 in Draw 1 and then shaded Duncan Silversides of Victoria 7-6 and dispatched Ramsay Murray of Kelowna/Kamloops 7-4.
Love and Raber were playing a semifinal at press time Saturday. Raber, supported by Ben Morin of Vernon and second Andrew Colwell and lead Gray Simms, both of Salmon Arm (coacvh Dale Hofer), fell 7-4 to defending provincial and national junior men’s champion Tyler Tardi of Langley/Victoria.
Raber then recovered by bouncing James Brown of Prince George 7-4 and brushed back Jordan Geiger of Invermere 6-5.
On the girls side, Vernon’s Jaelyn Cotter went 1-2. Cotter, who has Winter Harvey at third, Katelyn McGillivray at second and Cassidy Schwaerzle at front end, is coached by her Brier-famous father Jim. The Vernon girls lost their opener 5-3 to Sarah Daniels of Delta, the silver medalist at the 2016 Canadian junior playdowns. They fell 7-3 to Rebecca Douglas of Victoria before icing Kaitlyn Hessel of Invermere 10-2.
Cotter was tangling with Claire Schmidt of Lake Country in semifinal play at press time.
The winning rinks advance to the nationals, April 17-22, in Moncton. Visit: http:/playdowns.curlbc.ca for live scoring.