Top guns go head-to-head

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This article was published 31/12/2014 (4224 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a clash of the young curling titans, the last two Canadian junior men’s champions will battle at least once today as they chase the 2015 Manitoba junior title.

On one set of rocks will be reigning Canadian junior champ Braden Calvert and his Deer Lodge rink. On the other, is 2013 national winner Matt Dunstone, and his Granite foursome.

They face each other first at 8:30 a.m. today in the Canola Junior Curling Championships 1 vs. 1 game. The winner will move on to the 4 p.m. final; the loser will face either Hayden’s Heather Forrester or Granite’s Cole Peters, who will square off in the morning 2 vs. 2 game, in the 12:15 semifinal.

The top men’s matchup couldn’t have been better if it was scripted. Calvert, the reigning Canadian champion, rocked through the the round robin undefeated. Dunstone dropped only his last match, a 7-8 Tuesday decision against Granite clubmate Colin Kurz. They’ve faced each other a handful of times this season and Dunstone took the lion’s share, though some of the games were tight.

“We’ve just kind of learned through playing him that you can’t make many mistakes,” said Calvert, who still has two more years of junior eligibility left. “We know Matt pretty well, and have played lots against him. We just need to play our game.”

Oh, what a difference a year makes. Calvert, third Kyle Kurz, second Lucas Van Den Bosch and lead Brendan Wilson were still a fresh team last year,when they surged up to the top of the 2014 provincials and rocked the national tournament. The experience added confidence.

“It made it a bit easier this year to go out and play,” Calvert said. “I think the defending champ always has a little bit of a target on his back, but we’ve kind of embraced some of it.”

On the junior women’s side of the 8:30 a.m. draw, two-time Manitoba champion Shannon Birchard will face Fort Rouge skip Beth Peterson in the 1 vs. 1 game. Both skips are in their final year of junior eligibility and though Peterson and her team of third Robyn Njegovan, second Melissa Gordon and lead Breanne Yozenko have always been a threat, they’ve never taken it all.

“It would pretty much mean everything,” Peterson said. “We’ve been together for 10 years now, so this really means a lot to all of us for sure. (Getting in the 1 vs. 1) was our goal for sure. Two years ago we made it to the 1 vs. 1. It’s a big difference, because you have that in your mind that you’re not out.”

While Peterson and Birchard are battling for their pass to the final, Assiniboine Memorial’s Rachel Burtnyk will also be in the playoff race, as her 6-1 round-robin finish earned her a spot in the 2 vs. 2 game. But Burtnyk had to wait to learn her opponent, as a slew of tiebreakers shuffled draw times and meant the final women’s playoff spot was still up for grabs until late Tuesday night.

While Peterson won the Red Brick round-robin group with a 6-1 record, four teams in that group finished at 4-3 on the week: East St. Paul’s Kristy Watling, St. Vital’s Lisa Reid, Winkler’s Brooke Friesen and West Kildonan’s Sara Oliver. The tournament added two tiebreaker draws on Monday evening to break the stalemate.

At press time Reid, who won her earlier tiebreaker match against Watling, was facing off against the other first-tiebreaker winner, Friesen.

“I’m not at all surprised,” Peterson said, of the tight race. “The junior women’s field is so deep this year… there’s eight teams, nine teams that could have won this province probably, and represented it well.”

While the best seats in the house will surely be at Assiniboine Memorial, this year Curl Manitoba is also broadcasting two playoff games online, beginning with the junior women’s semifinal at 12:15 p.m. and followed by the junior men’s final at 4 p.m.

The broadcasts, which will be hosted by former junior regulars Connor Njegovan and Scott Peterson, will be streamed live from curlmanitoba.org.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca