The championship round is set at the O’Connor Glass/Curl PEI Provincial Under 18 Championships in Montague, with three men’s teams and two women’s rinks advancing.
The men’s side will see Justin Campbell and his Silver Fox Curling & Yacht Club team taking on the Tony Nabuurs rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex and the Montague & Maple Leaf clubs in the semi-final, at 10:30 am Sunday, with the winner facing the Tyler Smith foursome from Montague and Crapaud at 3:30 pm in the final. Campbell went undefeated in the round robin until his final game, where he lost 8-3 to Smith. Both teams had 4-1 win-loss records, but the Smith win over Campbell gave him first place, and the bye to the final.
Nabuurs and Summerside’s Alex MacFadyen both had 3-2 records and played off in an exciting tiebreaker to determine the last playoff spot, with MacFadyen stealing a deuce in the eighth to force an extra end, and Nabuurs scoring a single in the extra for a 6-5 win and a ticket to the semi-final. The other two rinks in the six team mens section were the Donald DeWolfe rink from Cornwall, who finished at 1-4, and the Owen Collier team from the host club, who went 0-5.
Like her clubmate Campbell, Jenny McLean and her Silver Fox rink were undefeated going into their final round robin contest, a very close game against Emily Keen and her combined Charlottetown and Cornwall team. Keen came from behind with a deuce in the final end to win 6-5. McLean, with her first-place 5-1 record, and Keen, second at 3-3, both advanced to the 3:30 pm final. The other two rinks in the four team women’s section, skipped by Heather Drake of Montague, and Rachel O’Connor of Cornwall, ended play with 2-4 records.
The winning men’s and women’s rinks will advance to their choice of either the Atlantic Under 18 Curling Championships, March 28-31 at the Caribou Curling Club in Stephenville NL, OR the Optimist International Under 18 Curling Championships, March 27-31 in Surrey and Langley BC, with the runners-up going to the other event. Starting last year, the option to attend the Optimist rotates annually between the four Atlantic Provinces – 2013 is PEI’s turn.