The Kyle Holland rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex beat defending champion Tyler Smith and his Montague Curling Club team by an 8-5 score this evening to win the Pepsi Provincial Junior Men’s Championship at the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club in Summerside. Team Holland includes Tony Nabuurs, who throws final stones, with Holland throwing third stones and calling the game, along with second Alex Sutherland, and lead Taylor McInnis. The team is coached by Angela Hodgson. Holland and McInnis were on last year’s runner-up rink, skipped by Chris Gallant, who is curling and attending school in Winnipeg this year. In tonight’s game, the Charlottetown team blanked the first two ends, took a triple in the third, and stole a deuce in the fourth end to take a 5-0 lead. Smith came back with a triple in five, which was followed by a Holland deuce and steal of 1. Smith took the next two ends to trail 8-5 coming home without hammer, and ran out of rocks in the final end. Other members of the runner-up Smith foursome are third Brooks Roche, second Dylan Lowery, and first stone Ryan Lowery, with coaches Tammy Dewar and Kevin Smith.
Meanwhile, it’ll be a return trip to the nationals for the Veronica Smith foursome, who beat their Cornwall clubmates the Amanda MacLean team by a 6-4 score in tonight’s Pepsi Provincial Junior Women’s final. The Smith team took singles in the first two ends. MacLean blanked the next two, and was kept to a single in the fifth. Smith took 1 in the sixth, and the teams then traded deuces and then singles to bring the final score to 6-4 to Smith, whose team is unchanged from last year, and includes third stone Chloe McCloskey, second Sabrina Smith, and first stone Katie Fullerton. The team is coached by Bill Hope and Paul Smith. Playing with runner-up MacLean were third Jane DiCarlo, second Emily Gray, and lead Aleya Quilty, with coach Lori Robinson.
The Kyle Holland and Veronica Smith teams will advance to the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors, January 18-26, 2014 in Liverpool NS. Holland and Smith are also skipping UPEI teams in the Atlantic University Curling Championships, January 3-5 at the Capital Winter Club in Fredericton, NB. In that event, Veronica Smith will be joined with DiCarlo, Gray and Quilty from the Amanda MacLean rink, while Holland’s team will include McInnis at lead, along with Connor MacPhee and Andrew Cameron.
Veronica Smith punched her ticket to tonight’s championship game on Sunday morning by handing MacLean her first loss in the event. As Smith was the only team to go through round robin play undefeated, she sewed up first place and the bye to the final. In the semi-final, the MacLean foursome edged their Cornwall clubmates, the Emily Keen team, 7-6 in an extra end to advance to the 7 pm final.
Holland captured the A event of the triple knockout portion of the junior men’s championship, and then won the Page A vs B game on Sunday night by an 8-0 score over Cornwall’s Matthew MacLean team to advance directly to tonight’s championship game, while Smith, who took the fourth and final qualifying spot for the Page round, beat Alex MacFadyen of Summerside 7-4 in the Page B vs C game, and MacLean 8-4 in the semi.
Eight junior men’s and seven junior women’s teams took part in this year’s event.