Dunstone, Ackland victorious at junior curling championships

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This article was published 10/01/2016 (3795 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RIVERS, Man. — For two straight years he had been denied, but now Matt Dunstone will get to wear the junior men’s buffalo jacket one last time.

On Sunday, the 2013 Canadian junior champion skip clinched his second Manitoba junior curling title, rising 7-4 over fellow Granite club curler Derek Oryniak in the championship game. With that, the 20-year-old skip capped an undefeated run through these provincials, which will be his last in the junior division.

The game started tight, with Dunstone carrying a 3-2 lead through five. But in the sixth end, he capitalized on a couple of Oryniak team misses to make an open draw for three and a firm lead. The teams traded singles before Dunstone ran Oryniak out of rocks in the 10th to bring on the handshakes.

“It’s awesome, it’s barely set in yet,” Dunstone said after trying on his Manitoba jacket. “We worked really hard for this all season, and it felt like we kind of got robbed from one last year. It’s been our goal all season to do this, and we accomplished it.”

The win gets even sweeter. When the Dunstone rink travels to the junior nationals in Stratford, Ont., later this month, they will go alongside the freshly minted Manitoba junior women’s champions on Team Abby Ackland. That foursome includes second Melissa Gordon, sister to Dunstone’s lead Rob Gordon.

So it was an emotional moment when Ackland’s team completed their 7-5 victory over Laura Burtnyk in the Sunday afternoon final. Like the men’s match, it was a tight push through the first half; but a deuce for Ackland in the sixth and a steal of two in the seventh launched them firmly into the lead.

This will be Ackland’s first trip to nationals as a skip. But her team, which includes lead Sara Oliver, doesn’t lack for experience: Ackland served as vice on the 2014 Manitoba champion Meaghan Brezden team, while third Robyn Njegovan and second Gordon played for last year’s champ Beth Peterson, who aged out.

Putting a team together was a late decision before the season, Ackland said. It worked out. “We just decided to give it a go,” Ackland said. “We’d all been to nationals, so we thought we had a pretty good chance, being calm and knowing what to expect. It was a good decision.”

It wasn’t easy to get there, though. The five days of competition in Rivers were studded by surprises and razor-tight results. On the men’s side, the most notable twist came when two-time Canadian champion and reigning world champion Braden Calvert fell to Oryniak in Saturday night’s 2-vs-2 page game.

That left top seed Dunstone, who had lost to Calvert in the last two provincial finals, “shocked” to make it through a tournament without playing Calvert once. Sure, the skip said, that was a bit of a relief to the foursome of Dunstone, third Colton Lott, second Kyle Doering and lead Gordon.

“We weren’t necessarily scared to play him, but he has bit us in the butt the last two times,” Dunstone said. “He’s so good in this event and he’s always finding a way to win this thing. But regardless of if we had to play him or not, the way we’re playing right now, I don’t think anyone was stopping us.”

On the women’s side, the roller-coaster ride saw Ackland knock out top seed Kristy Watling in the 2-vs-2 page playoff and Altona’s Mackenzie Zacharias in the semifinal, leaving her and fifth-seed Burtnyk — who won the 1-vs-1 over Zacharias — to advance to the championship game.

The final tilts were a winner in Rivers. The fan spirit at the Riverdale Community Centre was very much alive. Hundreds of spectators filled the stands, a turnout that Curl Manitoba organizers said was one of the best they’ve seen for a junior provincials.

The tournament also benefitted from arena ice at the community centre, tended by top ice technician Greg Ewasko.

“This was by far the best junior provincials I’ve ever been in,” Dunstone said. “The fans, the arena, the volunteers, everybody was so friendly. I can’t thank Rivers enough. It was cool for us to play in the arena and the setting and the atmosphere.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca