The Provincial Under 21 and Under 16 Junior Mixed Curling Championships took place this Saturday and Sunday at the Maple Leaf Curling Club in O’Leary, with the two U21 teams playing a best of five series, and the four team Under 16 division playing a round robin with all teams advancing to the semi-finals, and the semi winners going to the final.

The U21 section wrapped up Saturday evening, with the Leslie Noye rink from the Western, Charlottetown and Silver Fox clubs winning three straight over the Devin Schut rink from Cornwall and Crapaud, by 7-6, 11-2, and 9-1 scores.

Photo (L-R) U21 Jr. Mixed winners Leslie Noye (skip), Alex Gallant (second), Kaleigh Peters (lead), Alyssa Wright (3rd), Wendy Gallant (coach)

Jr. Mixed Runners-up: (L-R): Jonathan Schut (coach), Devin Schut (skip), Taya Crossman (3rd), Lauren Ferguson (lead). Missing from photo: Alec Huestis (2nd)

Round robin play wrapped up Saturday evening in the Under 16 divison, with two teams from the Cornwall Curling Club, skipped by Mitchell Schut and Alexis Burris, who combined their men’s and women’s teams for two entries in this event, both finishing with 2-1 win-loss records. These two teams met in the final round robin draw Saturday evening, with Burris winning 6-3, giving her first place. The other two teams in the event, the Connor Lilly rink from the Silver Fox and Cornwall, and Cornwall’s Chase MacMillan team, both had 1-2 round robin records.

The Sunday morning semi-finals saw Burris take on 4th place finisher MacMillan, and second place Schut take on third place Lilly, with the winners advancing to the Sunday afternoon final. Burris picked up double and triple steals in ends 5 and 6, winning 9-6. The Schut vs Lilly game was extremely close, and the two teams were tied 5-all coming home. Schut had last rock, but was facing a Lilly counter, in the four foot,  behind a wall of guards. He elected to angle raise his red guard onto the blue shot stone, but was wide and, watching closely from the near hog line, quickly changed to plan B, coming off another red rock, rolling to the centre, and picking out the blue rock to count two and advance to the final against Burris.

Photo: Schut’s game-winning shot in the semi-final. The rock was going to miss the red rock (in front of the two sweepers), so they swept it toward the red rock behind the blue guard.

Schut’s rock then hit the blue counter, taking it out of the rings, and counting two for the win

The Schut vs Burris final was very close, with the two teams tied 4-4 after six ends. Schut brought the game to an early conclusion with a five point seventh end, to win 9-4.

Photo (L-R): Winning U16 team: Mitchell Schut (skip), Sydney Howatt (3rd), Michael MacEwen (2nd), Madelyn Cantwell (lead), Nancy Yeo (coach), Curl PEI secretary Grant Hardy

Photo (L-R) U16 Runners-up: Alexis Burris (skip), Colin MacKenzie (3rd), Meghan Sherren (2nd), Liam Kelly (lead), Dario Zannier (coach), Curl PEI secretary Grant Hardy

The PEI provincial championship curling season wraps up this coming weekend, with the Travelers Curling Club Championship and the KFC Under 13 championship both starting Friday. The Mitchell Schut rink are the defending U13 champions, and Schut, and third Liam Kelly are entered again this year, with two members of the Silver Fox on their team.