It’s been quite the last few weeks of the curling season for three Ponoka athletes.
Courtney Chesterman, Thomas Crawford and Andrew Jones are all members of the Red Deer College (RDC) curling team and recently finished their seasons with some excellent results.
Crawford and Chesterman played on the mixed rink — alongside Erica Watts, Jayden Mitchell and Jaycee Bourke — that walked away from the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) championship Feb. 24 in Olds with an excellent result. The rink got past Augustana by a score of 7-3 to capture the bronze medal.
As a result, Crawford — who is in his first year at RDC and skips the mixed rink — was named the RDC athlete of the week on Feb. 25. He was recognized for leading the team with some great calls and the calm he showed while making some clutch shots throughout the weekend as well as in the medal game.
Meanwhile, Jones and the rest of his men’s rink ended up falling to Lakeland College in their bronze medal contest.
However, the third-year player who went from second to skip this season was presented with a huge ACAC award at the championship.
Jones was presented with the Charles Morter award for his contributions to both curling and the community. The award, which is voted on by the ACAC’s curling coaches, is handed out to an athlete that best exemplifies the qualities of the person the award is named after — including spirit, dedication, sportsmanship and leadership.
In presenting the award, it was noted Jones has been a tremendous ambassador for RDC as a whole along with the college’s athletics department and curling. His work as chair of the RDC Student-Athlete Advisory Council, being the student representative on the RDC Scholarship Breakfast Advisory Committee and a Resident Assistant, as a coach for high school curling in Ponoka and being an instructor at Red Deer’s adult learn to curl program demonstrated his work ethic and helping attitude.
In addition, Jones’ hard work in learning more about strategy and getting comfortable throwing last along with being a positive influence on the other players made him an invaluable member of the team, RDC and his community.