SALMON ARM, BC, February 8 (CCA)…Never count out a defending champion.
Today, Manitoba, skipped by Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg, successfully defended her Canadian title, defeating Ontario, 7-4 in the women’s final of the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors at the Sunwave Centre.
Lawes becomes the first skip since Prince Edward Island’s Suzanne Gaudet in 2001-2002 to win back-to-back Canadian junior titles. It’s also the ninth Canadian junior women’s title for Manitoba since the championship began in 1971 in Vancouver.
It was a conservative game for the first six ends, with Ontario, skipped by Rachel Homan of Ottawa, holding a 2-1 lead. But a deuce by Manitoba in the seventh gave the ‘Bison’ a 3-2. Then came the ‘TSN turning point’.
Homan tried to nudge a Manitoba counter with her last rock in order to take a deuce, but she rubbed off, giving her opponent a steal of one and a 4-2 lead. In the ninth, Homan got her deuce to tie it, although she was almost heavy with an open draw to the eight-foot, after Lawes failed to double out two Ontario stones in the four-foot.
It came down to the 10th end, as Manitoba, with hammer, had a host of rocks in the house. With her last stone, Homan tried to hit and roll but was wide and heavy, hitting and rolling out and leaving Lawes with the winning three points, without having to throw her last stone.
“They’re (Ontario) amazing. They are such a strong team,” said Lawes. “We had to go out there and hope for the best and wait for our opportunities. We hung in there and played our game. We didn’t really let them take control. We were kind of in control from the get-go. They didn’t play as sharp as they did against us in the round robin (which Ontario won 7-4), but they’re all young and they have a phenomenal future ahead of them.”
On Homan’s shot in the eighth, Lawes added, “I wasn’t surprised she tried it. It was there but it was a very risky shot. I think that was the turning point. I think it helps a lot (being in last year’s final). We knew what was going to happen, the breaks between each end, the long fifth end break, all that.”
It is the second Canadian junior title for Lawes and her third Jenna Loder, but the first title for second Laryssa Grenkow and lead Breanne Meakin. Lawes and Loder were teammates when winning last year’s M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors in Sault Ste. Marie and went on to win a bronze medal at the world juniors in Östersund, Sweden. Grenkow and Meakin played for skip Calleen Neufeld in the 2007 Canadian Juniors final, losing to Newfoundland and Labrador’s Stacie Devereaux, giving up three in the 10th for the heart-breaking loss in St. Catharines.
Lawes and her Pembina Curling Club team will now represent Canada at the 2009 world junior curling championships, March 5-15 at the Olympic Centre in Vancouver, also the site of the curling competition at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
“It’ll be such a great experience,” continued the 20-year-old Lawes, a nutritional sciences student at the University of Manitoba. “We’re really looking forward to being Team Canada and playing in front of Canada. We don’t have a whole lot of time between now and the world juniors. I actually missed a (school) assignment (this week) and got zero on it and have an exam on Wednesday, but it’s worth it right now.”
“We were going for the two,” said the 19-year-old Homan, about the critical eighth end. “Originally we had to get on it and we would have got one, but it was in between shots. We struggled today. We didn’t play our best, for sure. It wasn’t our day, I guess. We tried to mix it up (early) but we didn’t have our guard weight. We’re still trying to get to the Olympic Trials and we’ll play in the Players’ Championship.”
Lawes outshot Homan, 72% to 63%, while Manitoba also held an 81%-75% team advantage.