Walters rolling at men’s curling championship

Don’t overlook Brett Walter.

The 24-year-old skip out of Assiniboine Memorial made a massive statement early Friday at men’s curling provincials in Selkirk by handing No. 1 seed Reid Carruthers a 9-2 shellacking that lasted just five ends in an ‘A’ qualifier game.

“Yeah, it worked out in our favour this morning,” Walter told the Free Press.

You don’t say.

Walter, third Julien Leduc, second Graham McFarlane, and lead Hugh McFarlane opened with a deuce before scoring four in the third and then three in the fifth to close things out.

The other ‘A’ qualifier saw No. 2 seed Jordon McDonald join Walter as the only other 3-0 squad after beating third-ranked Braden Calvert 8-5.

“No, not at all,” said Walter when asked if he expected to blow out the reigning, back-to-back champion.

“Obviously, they’re a great team. We knew we had to come out and play sharp. It was a little bit of an unexpected four that we had a chance at in the third end that we made, but yeah, I like the way the guys played.”

The score was a shock, but don’t call it an upset. Walter broke out at last year’s provincials by making it to the championship round before losing to Calvert in the Page 1 vs. 2 and then to Carruthers in the semifinal.

“We definitely know we can compete and we want to come out as champions at the end of the week,” said Walter, who won a provincial junior title back in 2020.

“We probably played our best curling last year as a team (at provincials) and we’re kind of rolling that into this year and trying to go with the same vibe. We know we can play with anybody as long as we play our game and make the right shots. A little bit of luck can also go your way sometimes, but hopefully we can hang in there until the end of the weekend.”

Carruthers, a nine-time Manitoba champion, has played in enough of these to know that the sky isn’t falling after one bad showing. The loss forced the 41-year-old to play in the afternoon draw against Brandon’s Steve Irwin — a game Carruthers ended up winning 9-5 — before meeting McDonald late in a Page 1 vs. 2 game qualifier. Calvert rebounded by beating Virden’s Jace Freeman 8-2 in the afternoon to play Walter at night for the other spot in the 1 vs. 2.

Shortly before press deadline, Calvert took down Walter 10-4 and McDonald scored a triple in the ninth to defeat Carruthers 6-2.

Both the Page 3 vs. 4 and Page 1 vs. 2 contests take place tonight at 7 p.m.

“I struggled this morning. We were all a little bit lost and they played really well,” said Carruthers. “He’s played really well against me a couple of times. He’s got very good draw weight and he’s a good hitter.”

While Carruthers looked more like himself against Irwin, his first two victories this week were nailbiters — an 8-7 result over Fort Rouge’s Andrew Wickman and a 6-5 win over Freeman — that easily could’ve gone the other way.

“Not bad so far. There’s room for improvement, but pretty darn solid,” said Carruthers on his team’s performance this week.

“There’s lots of good teams in our province.”

If they can put the loss to Calvert behind them and rattle off four straight wins, Team Walter can establish themselves as a great one.

Walter, McDonald, and Calvert are all chasing their first Brier.

“Growing up, just watching the strength of Manitoba and how it was always so tough to get out of the province and go to the Brier, it was (clear that) it was such an accomplishment to become a provincial champion,” said Walter, who has also won the U18 mixed doubles provincials with his younger sister Meghan.

“I’ve always aspired to that and thought it was something that I wanted to do one day. And now that we potentially have a chance to be in the mix for that, it’s great.”

Lott fighting for spot in Page 3 vs. 4

Things were heating up in the ‘C’ event Friday afternoon with Selkirk’s own Tanner Lott outlasting Gladstone’s Jeff Stewart in a wild 10-9 affair on a game-winning hit and stay in the 10th.

Lott, the No. 5 seed, will play Irwin at 9 a.m. in the ‘C’ qualifier with the winner advancing to play the Walter for a spot in the Page 3 vs. 4. The other ‘C’ qualifier — which will see Freeman play Carberry’s Kelly Marnoch — will earn a date with the Carruthers.

“That was a rollercoaster,” said Lott, who gave up four in the fourth before clawing back.

“Obviously, the score kind of tells the story. It was very up and down but we gave ourselves a shot on the last one and that’s all we need to do. It’s been kind of our MO this season to come back from a deficit. We just got to take it one game at a time. Every game is tough, everybody’s great.”

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