The Mitchell Schut team from Cornwall, which includes second Nick Johnston from Schut’s Canada Games Training Team, along with clubmates Sydney Howatt at lead and Sierra Clyke at third from the Canada Games Training Team skipped by Howatt, have captured the “B” section final and a spot in the Monday championship round at the PEI Mixed Curling Championship being played at the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton.
Photo (from Canada Games trials) L-R: Schut, Johnston, Clyke, Howatt
After handing “A” section winner and last year’s runner-up Tyler MacKenzie his first loss of the event, by a 5-3 score, on Saturday afternoon, Schut beat the Jamie Newson team from the Silver Fox and Charlottetown clubs by a 6-4 score in the “B” final on Sunday morning. Schut started off the game by stealing a triple over Newson, who was kept to singles in the next two ends. Schut followed a 4th end single with a stolen 5th end deuce to lead 6-2. Newson took the next two ends, but ran out of rocks in the eighth.
Newson now plays MacKenzie, with Schut taking on Summerside’s Corey Miller, who downed the host club’s Daryl MacDonald rink 9-1 Sunday morning, in the 2 pm “C” semi-finals. The winners advance to the 6 pm “C” final.
The two game championship round against the section winners goes at 10 am and, if needed, 2 pm on Monday. If either MacKenzie or Schut advances to and wins the “C” final, they, as double section winners, would have to be beaten twice on Monday, so the second game in the championship round would be required if the other team won the first. If there are three separate section winners, the team that played in the most section finals would get a bye to the 2 pm game.
Nine teams, with representatives from all seven dedicated PEI curling clubs took part in this year’s event. The winning team advances to the Canadian Mixed Curling Championships, November 5-10 2018 at the Fort Rouge Curling Club in Winnipeg.