The Tyler Smith junior men’s rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex, and the Lauren Lenentine junior women’s foursome from the Cornwall Curling Club have both won the first two of three sections of the Modified Triple Knockout draw, and now have a big advantage at the Pepsi Provincial Junior Curling Championships at the Montague Curling Club. If one or both of these teams should also win the third section final, at 3:30 pm on Thursday, they will win their respective junior men’s or women’s championship without the Friday championship round. If they don’t win the third section final, they will have a “double life” in the two game championship round on Friday, winning the title if they take either game, while their opponent, the winner of the third section, would have to win both.
Photo (L-R): Christopher Gallant, Tyler Smith, Noah O’Connor
The Smith rink, which includes third Christopher Gallant, second stone Noah O’Connor, and lead Brooks Roche, with coaches Peter Gallant and Kevin Smith, won their first section final on Wednesday morning, 10-4 over Cornwall’s Devin Schut rink, and their second on Wednesday evening, also against the Schut team, by a 7-3 score.
Photo (L-R): Breanne Burgoyne, Kristie Rogers, Lauren Lenentine
Team Lenentine, with third stone Kristie Rogers, second Breanne Burgoyne, and lead Rachel O’Connor, with coach Pat Quilty, beat the Kaleigh Mackay team from Charlottetown and Montague 9-4 in the “A” final, and 9-5 in the B.
The sudden-death “C” event wraps up on Thursday, with the Devin Schut squad taking on Dylan Lowery and his Montague/Silver Fox rink at 11 in the junior men’s section, with the winner facing Smith in the “C” final at 3:30. If Smith wins that game, he takes the championship. Lowery advanced to the “C” semi-final with an 11-4 win over Leslie Noye and his combined Western/Silver Fox/Cornwall team Wednesday evening. Noye doubled the young Mitchell Schut foursome from Cornwall 6-3 on Wednesday afternoon to advance to the game against Lowery.
On the women’s side, it’s the young Lauren Ferguson rink from Cornwall taking on the Kaleigh Mackay foursome from Charlottetown and Montague Thursday at 11, with the winner meeting Lenentine in the “C” final at 3:30. Lenentine will win the championship if she takes that game. Ferguson came up on the winning side of two very close games on Wednesday, eliminating Cornwall clubmate Meghan Ching with a 6-5 score in the afternoon draw, stealing the last end when Ching’s final stone wrecked on a rock at the top of the house, and then went on to edge out another young Cornwall team, skipped by Alexis Burris, by an 8-7 score in the evening draw.
If either Lenentine or Gallant lose the “C” final, there will be a two-game championship round on Friday at 11 am and, if needed, 3 pm, with the “C” final winner playing off against either Lenentine or Gallant, and having to win both games to take the title, while Lenentine or Gallant would take their respective title if they won either game.
This year’s winners advance to the 2017 Canadian Junior (Under 21) Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships, Jan. 21-29 at the Archie Browning Sports Centre in Esquimalt (a suburb of Victoria) BC, using the facility’s hockey arena and six-sheet curling rink to decide which teams will represent Canada at the 2017 World Junior Curling Championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Ten teams – 5 junior men’s and 5 junior women’s took part in this year’s PEI championship, for curlers under age 21.
Live end-by-end results from the provincial championship are available at PEICurling.com.