Staff
Rainy River District will have two representatives at the men’s provincial curling championship next month.
Third Mike Badiuk (Devlin) and lead Travis Showalter (Nestor Falls) helped the Dylan Johnston rink of Thunder Bay to a 4-0 record and top spot at the West regional qualifier held over the weekend at the Fort Frances Curling Club.
Johnston opened with a 10-6 win Friday night over Bryan Burgess (Thunder Bay) before earning a 5-4 win against Jordan Chandler (Thunder Bay) on Saturday morning.
Then he nipped a Geraldton-based rink skipped by Stratton native Trevor Bonot 6-5 on Saturday to clinch one of the three berths available for the provincials set for Feb. 8-12 in Thunder Bay.
Johnston capped his weekend by stealing one in an extra end to down Colin Koivula
(Thunder Bay) by an 8-7 margin.
Burgess went 3-1 to claim the second provincial berth while Bonot, Chandler, and Koivula all finished at 1-3 that created the need for two tie-breakers.
Due to having the smallest combined distance during his pre-game draws to the buttons, Koivula got the bye to the second tie-breaker while Bonot and Chandler battled it out in the first on.
Three-enders in the first and fourth, coupled with a steal of one in the fifth, had Chandler up 7-2.
Bonot and his rink of third Mike Assad, second Andrew Hackner, lead Dwayne Sutherland, and fifth Jamie Childs clawed their way back with two in the sixth and then stealing one in the seventh.
After holding Chandler to one in the eighth to trail 8-5, Bonot only could score one in the ninth that left him down two without hammer coming home.
Bonot worked his way into position for a steal but only got one to fall 8-7 and be eliminated from further contention.
Chandler, who started the weekend 0-2, completed his turnaround by crushing Koivula 9-3 in the second tie-breaker to earn the final berth.
