Good will have to get better

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This article was published 10/01/2011 (5601 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two years ago, he was considered a surprise winner, the upstart almost no one but himself expected to win.

But there will be no flying under the radar for Sam Good today as the Stonewall skip attempts to win his second Manitoba junior men’s curling championship in three seasons.

Good, the 2009 Manitoba junior men’s champion, came into this year’s championship as the top seed and favourite to win. But he will have to take the long road if he’s going to pull it off today.

Good played Pembina’s Daniel Birchard in a battle of perfect 7-0 teams in the Page playoff 1 vs. 1 game at Gimli Curling Club Sunday night and it was Birchard who came out on top, stealing singles in the sixth and ninth ends en route to a 6-3 victory.

The win vaulted Birchard and his mates — Kelly Fordyce, Brody Moore and Andrew Peck — straight through to this afternoon’s men’s final, while Good gets a second chance in this morning’s semifinal against Deer Lodge’s Joey Witherspoon.

Witherspoon advanced to the semifinal with a 9-5 win over West Kildonan’s Kyle Doering in the 2 vs. 2 game Sunday night.

Good went 6-6 as Team Manitoba at the 2009 Canadian Juniors and missed the playoffs.

He’d desperately like to get a second chance in his final year of junior eligibility, with a team that includes Taylor McIntyre from that 2009 squad but a new third in Riley Smith and lead in Dillon Bednarek.

“It was amazing — I’d love to go back,” Good said Sunday. “It’s nice when you know what you’re working towards. We’d definitely like to get back and I think there’s a little bit less pressure on us because we’ve been there before and we know what it’s about.

“But we’ll see how it goes.”

Meanwhile, at the Manitoba junior women’s curling championship at Victoria Curling Club, defending champion Breanne Meakin is on the cusp of making history today as just the fourth curler to win four Manitoba junior women’s championships.

St. Vital’s Meakin advanced straight to this afternoon’s provincial final with a 9-4 win over Ste. Anne’s Alyssa Vandepoele in Sunday night’s 1 vs. 1 Page playoff game.

Meakin will now await the winner of this morning’s semifinal between Vandepoele and East St. Paul’s Katie Spencer.

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Spencer defeated Victoria’s Kate Cameron 8-7 in an extra end in Sunday night’s 2 vs. 2 game.

Spencer had to take the long route to the playoffs after a 6-5 loss to Brandon’s D’Arcy Maywood on the final draw of the round-robin Sunday afternoon put those two teams into a tie for second place at 5-2 and forced an immediate rematch in a playoff tiebreaker game.

Spencer won the rematch 6-4 and then had to head right back out on the ice yet again Sunday night to face Cameron in the 2 vs. 2 game.

LOOSEHAIRS — Rachel Burtnyk and Selena Katz, as well as Scott Peterson were voted by their fellow competitors as the winners of this year’s Susan Galbraith sportsmanship awards… Albert Bazinet and Rob Meakin won the Asham Coaching Excellence Award.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca