‘It’s a dream come true’

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This article was published 02/01/2015 (4221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hours before the strike of midnight, Beth Peterson and Braden Calvert found the perfect New Year’s outfit: they rang in 2015 with a brand-new buffalo jacket.

On Wednesday, Calvert and Peterson led their teams to the Manitoba men’s and women’s junior curling championships, capping off a gruelling day of playoff games at Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club. In the end, the fate of each team was decided by an opponent’s final throw: those last shots clinched Team Calvert’s 7-6 win over Granite’s Matt Dunstone, and Peterson’s 6-5 victory over St. Vital skip Shannon Birchard.

So it was in with the old, as well as in with the new. Calvert’s Deer Lodge rink of third Kyle Kurz, second Lucas Van Den Bosch and lead Brendan Wilson successfully defended its 2014 title. “It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Calvert said. “It’s a dream come true, and I’m so proud of the boys.”

It was the first provincial championship in five tries for Peterson’s Fort Rouge foursome of third Robyn Njegovan, second Melissa Gordon and lead Breanne Yozenko. With half the team about to age out of junior, it came at the perfect time. “It’s amazing, it feels so good to be playing together for 10 years and finally get something like this,” Njegovan said. “It means so much for our final year together to get this.”

The New Years Eve finals were wild, almost copies of each other. Each was a rematch of the morning’s 1 vs. 1 page playoff game; in each case, the winner was the team that took the long way to the final. In the finals, Peterson and Calvert fell behind early, but capitalized on their opponents’ mistakes to surge back up the scoreboard; both finals were tied going into the 10th end.

They clinched their championship-winning points when the opposing skips missed their last 10th-end shots.

The men’s game was decided first. Dunstone took command of the game early, scoring three in the third end to go up 3-0. The teams traded singles for two ends, then deuces, and went into the ninth with Dunstone leading 6-4. Suddenly, the situation shifted, as some painful Dunstone misses handed Calvert a steal of two, and tied the game up coming home.

The ice on both sheets was difficult, and it showed. In the 10th end, late misses by Dunstone’s team put Calvert in a position to steal; Dunstone’s hammer came in heavy to seal the deal. “The ice was definitely a challenge,” Calvert said. “I know the ice guys were doing everything they could with the conditions that faced them, but we figured out the ice… Playing three games on that sheet really helped us in the final.”

Minutes later and two sheets over, Peterson clinched her win. Her team struggled in the morning page playoff, which Birchard claimed 9-3. For awhile, it looked like the final might go the same way: Birchard struck for a deuce in the fourth and stole two more in the fifth end to go up 4-0.

In the seventh, everything changed: Peterson’s team stole three to tie the game. “Melissa (Gordon) really pulled through,” Peterson said. “She made two peaches, and really got the end going. And we thought, throw a few guards on those ones, and they gave me the opportunity to lie three, and we took advantage of it.”

Peterson stole another in the eighth to take a lead, and Birchard replied in the ninth to tie the game. Birchard’s hope of stealing one in the 10th evaporated when her last shot wrecked, bringing on the handshakes. “It sunk in pretty quick,” Peterson said. “Robyn looked back at me with the biggest smile, and I just couldn’t stop smiling. I was just so excited, and I was happy.”

Peterson and Calvert will now prepare to head Corner Brook, Nfld. on Jan. 24, where Calvert will battle to defend his Canadian championship.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca