Manitoba junior men’s curlers win bronze at nationals

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This article was published 21/01/2018 (3009 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg skip J.T. Ryan went all in on the final end but couldn’t get the finish he wanted at the Canadian junior men’s curling championship Saturday evening.

In Shawinigan, Que., Ryan’s team of third Jacques Gauthier, second Colin Kurz and lead Brendan Bilawka suffered a 9-8 defeat to Tyler Tardi of British Columbia in a semifinal showdown.

B.C. meets Northern Ontario’s Tanner Horgan in the national final today.

After blanking the first two ends, B.C. opened with three in the third end, and added a fifth-end deuce to move ahead 5-2. But Ryan and his Assiniboine Memorial teammates posted a huge three of their own in the sixth end and stole a point and a 6-5 lead in the seventh.

The teams traded deuces in the eighth and ninth ends, and B.C. had the hammer in the 10th down one. With centre guards up, Manitoba went on the offensive and made a couple of attempts to bury a shot rock near the button but couldn’t quite get the right protection. Tardi executed a hit for the win in the 10th.

“Real disappointing, yeah; it sucks,” said Ryan, 20. “They’re such a great team and we spotted them the early three, but we were able to battle back and take the lead, and it was in our hands. We talked before the 10th end that we weren’t happy with a force (to hold B.C. to one and take last-rock advantage into the extra end). We wanted to go for it (steal for the win); we executed what we wanted, I just couldn’t make my last one.

“If you told us at the beginning of the year that we would be getting bronze at the nationals, we’d be very happy. Right now it sucks, but we’re happy with how we handled it.”

The Manitobans, who repeated as provincial champions — they finishing fourth at the Canadians a year ago — demonstrated tremendous class in defeat, as each player took the time to thank event umpires and shake the hands of volunteers as they left the ice.

Ryan, who shot 85 per cent during the round robin, was named the all-star skip of the event, while Gauthier shot 87 per cent and was named the all-star third.

Manitoba’s Shae Bevan, meanwhile, finished 3-3 in her pool in round-robin play and did not quality for the playoff round in junior women’s action. The St. Vital team went into the seeding pool and finished the national championship with a 5-4 record.

Bevan guided a foursome that included third Kyla Grabowski, second Paige Beaudry and lead Jessica Hancox.

The Canadian junior women’s gold-medal game pits Nova Scotia’s Kaitlyn Jones against home-province hopeful Laurie St-Georges.

The Quebec team is hoping to secure the province’s first Canadian junior women’s title since Marie-France Larouche prevailed in 1999 at Kelowna.

The winning junior women’s and men’s teams represent Canada at the 2018 world junior championships, March 3-10 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell