Calvert, Peterson win at Manitoba junior curling championships

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/12/2014 (4222 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After three games, a whack of nail-biter ends and almost 11 hours of play, Braden Calvert and Beth Peterson’s curling fate rode on their opponent’s final throw.

When those rocks came to rest, Calvert and Peterson were 2015 provincial junior champions both.

That’s one way to ring in a new year. “It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Calvert said. “It’s a dream come true, and I’m so proud of the boys.”

On Wednesday night at Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club, Calvert defended his Manitoba championship with a 7-6 win over 2013 Canadian champion Matt Dunstone, while Peterson claimed her first junior women’s title with a 6-5 victory over former two-time Manitoba champ Shannon Birchard.

Neither win came easy on tough ice conditions, both were tight battles, and both hinged on dramatic late-game mistakes.

That doesn’t take away from the euphoria of the win, though. After the awards ceremony, Peterson was still shaking; it was her Fort Rouge team’s fifth and final run in the junior provincials, and the one that sealed it.

“It’s amazing, it feels so good to be playing together for 10 years and finally get something like this,” said Team Peterson third Robyn Njegovan. “It’s what we’ve worked for the whole time… it means so much for our final year together to get this.”

The games were wild, almost copies of each other. Each was a rematch of the morning’s 1 vs. 1 page playoff game; on the women’s side it was Peterson who took the long way to the final, while Calvert made the semifinal trip on the men’s. Both of those teams fell behind early, but capitalized on their opponent’s misses to tie the game in the 9th end. And both grabbed a single point of an opponent’s miss in the 10th to clinch their buffalo jacket.

So let’s make a quick review of the day’s events, with more to come in Friday’s paper.

In the 8:15 a.m. 1 vs. 1 page playoff game, Deer Lodge’s Team Calvert lost a tight one to Dunstone in the 1 vs. 1 page playoff game, falling 7-6 to land in the afternoon semifinal. There, Calvert, third Kyle Kurz, second Lucas Van Den Bosch and lead Brendan Wilson soared 10-5 past Granite’s Team Cole Peters to set up the rematch final.

Dunstone took command of the game early, scoring three in the third end to go up 3-0. The teams traded singles for two ends, then deuces, then Calvert grabbed a point in the eighth to put the score at 6-4 in Dunstone’s favour. But in the ninth end, the whole situation shifted, as some painful Dunstone misses handed Calvert a steal of two, and tied the game up coming home.

In the 10th end, another string of late misses allowed Calvert to lie two. Dunstone’s final hammer came in heavy, and Calvert stole the winning point. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the prettiest curling, but that’s so often the name of the game.

“The ice was definitely a challenge,” Calvert agreed. “I know the ice guys were doing everything they could with the conditions that faced them, but we figured out the ice and we maybe just caught on to it a little bit better. Playing three games on that sheet really helped us in the final.”

On the women’s side, Peterson struggled in the morning game, and Birchard won 9-3. That forced Peterson to face St. Vital’s Team Lisa Reid in the semifinal, and that game too was a battle: after tying the game with the hammer in the 10th, the Peterson foursome set the extra end up beautifully, and stole the winning point when Reid’s hammer draw sailed too heavy. So it was to be a rematch final on the women’s side, too.

After blanking the first three ends of the final, Birchard struck for a deuce in the fourth and stole two more in the fifth end to go up 4-0. But the biggest end was yet to come: after grabbing a point in the sixth, Peterson stole three more points in the seventh to tie the game at four apiece.

“Melissa (Gordon), our second, really pulled through,” Peterson said. “She made two peaches, and really got the end going. And we thought, throw a few guards on those ones, and they gave me the opportunity to lie three, and we took advantage of it.”

The tensest moments were yet to come. Team Peterson, which also includes lead Breanne Yozenko, stole another in the eighth to take a lead, but Birchard grabbed one back in the ninth to tie the game coming home – Birchard could have had two there, but her hammer draw came in too light. In the 10th, Birchard’s last shot wrecked to seal Peterson’s win and bring on the handshakes.

“It sunk in pretty quick,” Peterson said. “Robyn looked back at me, with the biggest smile, and I just couldn’t stop smiling. I was just so excited, and I was happy I didn’t have to throw my last one.”