 Christina Black (Photo: Andrew Klaver/Curling Canada) and her Halifax, N.S. squeaked past Kayla Skrlik with a 6-5 victory at the 2025 Montana's Canadian Curling Trials on Nov. 25 in Halifax. By Meredith McCullum Alongside lead Karlee Everist, second Jenn Baxter and third Jill Brothers, Christina Black now sits 3-2 with two games left to play in round robin action. The home team picked up a gritty win over Skrlik, stealing in the ninth and tenth ends. On a Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., the crowd was filled with school groups, filing in for a field trip to the Curling Trials. Everist was blown away with the boisterous cheering every time her team made a shot, and even engaged with the kids, enjoying the fun environment in a high stakes game. "It was really loud, but we were ready for it." said Everist. "On one of my shots, they started screaming. I usually don't get screams on my shots. I just started going, 'yeah'! They love that, right? That's what they want. They want the people to engage with them. It was super fun." Calgary's Skrlik - backed by Margot Flemming, Ashton Skrlik and Geri-Lynn Ramsay - started the game with hammer, scoring one. Black picked up a deuce in the second. After a blank in the third, Skrlik missed a blank attempt in the fourth, being forced to a single point. In the fifth, Black missed a runback on her first shot, leaving herself a difficult draw against 2. She missed the shot, giving up a steal of two to trail 4-2 at the break. After Black's rink scored one in the sixth, they applied pressure on Skrlik the whole seventh end. Skrlik made a perfect draw to the side of the button on her last shot to score, giving herself a 5-3 lead. Black threw a hit against 2 to close out the eighth end, narrowing the gap to 5-4. Skrlik had control in the ninth, but took a gamble on her last shot, electing to attempt a difficult angle double for two instead of playing an open draw for one. She missed the shot and Black stole one, tying the game 5-5. The final end saw Skrlik - throwing red rocks - draw to the top of the button on her first to sit shot. Black played a double to clear some rocks out of the house, sitting first and third undercover. Skrlik hit the yellow stone too thick on an all-or-nothing hit and roll, giving Black the steal and a very important third straight win. "We've played [Skrlik] a few times, we know it always comes down to the last couple shots, so we just tried to keep the game close," said Everist, following the win. "By stealing one, that was nice. We knew we just had to do that again. That's what our focus was and we did it." Up next for team Black is Selena Sturmay, tonight at 7 p.m. AST. Sturmay sits at 2-3 after a loss to undefeated Kerri Einarson in the 9 a.m. draw. "We've never played them before, which is weird because we've played most of these teams a lot," said Everist, on the matchup. "We'll just try to get as much rest as we can and then sit down after and figure out what our game plan will be." "The standings are so close...You might get away with one loss, but I don't know. I'm not going to take my chances on that. If we can get that W tonight, they'll put us in a really nice position going into tomorrow." Round Robin action wraps up Nov. 26 with Team Black facing Manitoba's Kate Cameron in their final game at 2 p.m. AST. Catch the games on TSN (Canada) and TSN YouTube (internationally). Linescores and standings are available at Curlingzone.com. |
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Christina Black (Photo: Andrew Klaver/Curling Canada) and her Halifax, N.
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