Witherspoon just one win from his 2nd junior title

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This article was published 09/01/2012 (5219 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JOEY WITHERSPOON is one win away from his second Manitoba junior men’s curling championship in three years.

Fort Rouge’s Witherspoon, who won the province as third for Deer Lodge’s Alex Forrest in 2010, advanced to this afternoon’s provincial final at West Kildonan Curling Club with a 10-5 win over Assiniboine Memorial’s Derek Blanchard in Sunday evening’s Page playoff 1 vs. 1 game.

The loss dropped Blanchard into this morning’s semifinal, where he will face West Kildonan’s Kyle Doering. Doering advanced to the semi with a 5-2 win in the 2 vs. 2 game over Pembina’s hard-luck Daniel Birchard Sunday night.

Birchard, who was eliminated with the loss, lost last year’s provincial final and was hoping to finally break through this year.

With Sunday night’s win, Witherspoon, the top seed this year, is now a perfect 8-0, having finished the round-robin earlier in the day with the only undefeated record in the 16-team field at 7-0. Blanchard advanced to the final by finishing first atop his pool with a 6-1 record. That was the same record as Birchard, but Birchard was relegated to the second-place game because he lost the round-robin game between the two teams.

Witherspoon also won the 1 vs. 1 Page playoff game in 2010 when he and Forrest went on to win the province, only to lose the final of the Canadian Juniors later that winter.

“Coming in here, we figured we needed to be at least 6-1 (in the round-robin) to secure a playoff spot,” Witherspoon said earlier in the day. “And obviously we accomplished that and did a little better. It’s a nice little perk… We’re in a good spot for sure. We’re really happy with the way things went.

“Obviously, being the top seed we’ve been favoured to win all these games. But everyone’s played us real tough. It hasn’t always looked that way on the scoreboard, but we’ve had to battle every game.”

Sunday night’s win over Blanchard was a case in point. Witherspoon fell behind 3-0 after just the second end, but then found his game and punished Blanchard 10-2 the rest of the way to secure the victory.

“We’ve had to make a lot of shots to get where we are — and we’ve made those shots. It’s been nice.”

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Meanwhile, at the junior women’s provincial curling championship at the Minnedosa Curling Club, the Page playoffs are only set to begin this morning after a three-way tie for second place in one pool at the conclusion of the round-robin Sunday delayed the start of the playoffs to today.

Assiniboine Memorial’s Katie Spencer finished alone in first atop her pool with a 6-1 record, as did St. Vital’s Shannon Birchard, also with a 6-1 record. That advanced both those teams through to this morning’s 9 a.m. Page playoff 1 vs. 1 game, where the winner advances to this afternoon’s 5 p.m. final, while the loser gets a second chance in this afternoon’s semi-final at 1 p.m. against the winner of this morning’s 2 vs. 2 game.

Sydney Arnal’s unseeded Dauphin team claimed one of the spots in the second-place game with a 5-2 record in her pool, but it took two tiebreaker games on Sunday to determine who would claim the other spot after top seed Alyssa Vandepoele of Victoria, clubmate Beth Peterson and Stonewall’s Rebecca Lamb all finished tied for second in their pool at 5-2.

Vandepoele defeated Peterson 7-4 in the first tiebreaker game and then stole one in an extra end Sunday night to defeat Lamb 7-6 and advance to play Arnal this morning.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca