MONTAGUE – The Tyler Smith rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex, and the Lauren Lenentine foursome from the Cornwall Curling Club are in control at the Pepsi provincial junior curling championships.
Both rinks have won the first two of three sections of the modified triple-knockout draw.
If one or both of these teams should also win the third section final at 3:30 p.m. 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. They will only need one win to take the title while their opponent, the winner of the third section, would have to win both.
Jason Simmonds/TC Media photo
The Smith rink, which includes third stone 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 7-3.
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 final.
The sudden-death C event wraps up on Thursday as the Devin Schut squad takes on Dylan Lowery and his Montague/Silver Fox rink at 11 a.m. in the junior men’s section. The winner faces Smith in the C final at 3:30 p.m.
If Smith wins that game, he takes the championship. Lowery advanced to the C semifinal 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.
Women’s side
On the women’s side, it’s the young Lauren Ferguson rink from Cornwall taking on Mackay Thursday at 11 a.m., with the winner meeting Lenentine in the C final at 3:30 p.m.
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. Then, in the evening draw, Team Ferguson edged another young Cornwall team, skipped by Alexis Burris, 8-7.
If either Lenentine or Gallant lose the C final, there will be a two-game championship round on Friday at 11 a.m., and, if needed, at 3 p.m., with the C final winner playing off against either Lenentine or Gallant, and having to win both games to take the title. Lenentine or Gallant would take their respective title if they won either game.
This year’s winners advance to the 2017 Canadian junior men’s and women’s curling championships in Esquimalt, a suburb of Victoria, B.C., from Jan. Jan. 21 to 29.
Ten teams – five junior men’s and five junior women’s – were entered in this year’s P.E.I. championship for curlers under age 21.