Lawes, Good junior curling champs

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This article was published 06/01/2009 (6342 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pembina’s Kaitlyn Lawes and Sam Good were crowned 2009 Manitoba junior curling champions at Granite Curling Club this afternoon.

Lawes defeated Ste. Anne’s Alyssa Vandepoele 8-5 in the junior women’s final, while Good defeated Portage’s Michael Johnson 5-4 in the junior men’s final.

Lawes did all her scoring in just three ends — registering three-enders in the second and seventh ends and stealing two more in the ninth.

Lawes is the 2008 Canadian junior curling champion and will now get the chance to defend her title Jan. 31-Feb. 8 at the Canadian Juniors in Salmon Arm, British Columbia.

Lawes, 20,  will be joined in B.C .by third Jenna Loder, 20, second Laryssa Grenkow, 20, and lead Breanne Meakin, 18. The team is coached by 1995 world men’s curling champion Rob Meakin.

“It feels great,” Breanne Meakin, who previously won a Manitoba junior title in 2007 with Calleen Neufeld, said after the game. “I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

That was the same thing Good was saying Tuesday afternoon after defying long odds — and a 10th seeding — to capture what is the first provincial title for the entire Good team, which also includes Taylor McIntyre, Kent Moffitt and David Wiebe.

Good cooly drew the eight-foot with the last rock of the game to score his game-winning deuce. The loss was a bitter one for Johnson, who went undefeated through the entire event — 8-0 — only to register his first defeat in the only game that really matters.

True to his cool form on the ice, Good was just as laid back in facing the media afterward. “This is the first time I’ve ever been to the provincials and to go to (the Canadian Juniors) is just awesome,” said Good.