Team Cinnamon was literally within a hair's breadth of winning the Alberta U21 women's championship.

The decision as to who would represent the province came down to a final rock measurement in the tenth end in the gold medal final between the closely matched Cochrane rink, and the Abby Marks rink, of St. Albert. 

With a 7-2 record, the Cinnamon rink topped the round-robin and went directly into the gold medal final, where they held a 4-3 lead after eight ends. The St. Albert rink grabbed two in the ninth, setting up a tense tenth end.

An earlier meeting between the two finalists saw the Marks team win in an extra end.

Skip Zoe Cinnamon says the Cochrane team beat its expectations. Last year they finished seventh.

"Our initial goal was to be top four, and then we ended up placing second," says Cinnamon, "so just to be able to beat our goal like that was great."

"We finished first out of round-robin. We went straight to the final, which is crazy. We were all super excited and proud of each other for what we accomplished."

The Cinnamon rink is young and additionally competes at the U18 level. They will be competing for Alberta U18 women's championship in Sexsmith, Feb. 26 to Mar. 1. They will be competing against each other in both the U18 and U21 mixed doubles provincials.

Upcoming for Team Cinnamon are bonspiels in both Red Deer and Ponoka.

The Cinnamon Rink is formed by skip Zoe Cinnamon, third Myla Plett, second Raelyn Helston, spare Ava Plett, and lead Lauren Miller. They are coached by Blair Lenton. 

Two other teams had Cochrane players in the U21 match up between the top eight teams in the province. Julianna MacKenzie is lead for Team Bakker, and Cochrane High graduate Jessica Wytrychowski skips a team that is affiliated with the Airdrie Curling Club and also curls out of the Cochrane Curling Centre.

Abby Marks was third for last year's U21 national championship team skipped by Selena Sturmay. Her rink will be heading to Langley, B.C. for the Jan. 18-26 nationals.