Local junior curlers fail to advance

The most valuable lessons often are learned from failure.
Adam Bolen’s junior men’s rink and Jenna Enge’s junior women’s rink, representing the Fort Frances Curling Club, struggled at the provincial championships last week in Sault Ste. Marie—each winning just one game.
However, despite the poor win-loss records, both teams’ coaches were thrilled with the way their players competed—and are excited about the future.
“We definitely showed them that we were there to play,” junior men’s coach Tom Fry enthused. “I felt that we were as technically sound as any team that was there.”
“I think it was really good for the girls to go and compete,” echoed junior women’s coach Dave Bondett. “They got knocked over a couple of times and they came back, which is important.
“It would have been really easy to be intimidated over there and not be able to play,” he added.
“I was really impressed with how composed they were when they played and their ability to raise their play at times that put them right in the same league as some of those other teams.”
Both Fry and Bondett said the only thing separating their rinks from some of the more successful ones at the provincials was experience playing in high-pressure games against top-notch opponents.
“I think we lacked experience against that level of competition,” Fry said of the junior men’s woes. “What our losses came down to was maybe one or two bad strategy calls in the game.
“They were quite often the turning point of the game,” he added. “We could have been 4-0 at one point just given a little bit of better strategy.”
“Being young, they’re inconsistent and they made a few mistakes here and there that cost them,” Bondett said of the junior women’s struggles.
“For the experience they have, they actually played really well. We were pretty happy.”
In addition to lacking experience playing against high-level competition, the junior men’s rink had to adjust to playing with a new skip. Bolen joined just prior to the association playdowns in Longlac earlier this month.
“Had our team been together for the whole year, that might have helped, as well,” Fry remarked. “Adam came in kind of last-minute as a skip and he hadn’t played with them.”
Despite it all, both coaches said the experience gained at the provincials will prove invaluable down the road. All of the teams’ members, with the notable exception of Bolen, also compete on the Muskie curling teams.
David Kaun, who acted as vice-skip for the junior men’s rink at the Soo, will resume his duties as skip for the Muskie boys’ team.
Both the Muskie boys’ and girls’ curling rinks resume play at the high school level when they travel to Rainy River on Jan. 31 for the second NorWOSSA qualifier.
< *c>Slow start
Bolen’s rink certainly stumbled out the gates at the provincials, dropping their opening game last Thursday by a 7-3 score to Eric Theriault (Fort William).
The competition didn’t get any easier in their next game as they faced the eventual champs in Ryan Harnden (Sault Ste. Marie).
The Bolen rink played arguably their best game of the playdowns, scoring three in the ninth to tie the game 8-8 with one end remaining. But Bolen then missed an angle tap in the 10th end, allowing Harnden to score one and win the game.
The Fort Frances crew met with more tough luck against Mark Greco’s rink (Schumacher) on Friday morning.
Greco scored five in a disastrous sixth end for Bolen to build an insurmountable 9-4 lead, then hung on for the 10-8 victory.
Bolen’s luck finally took a turn for the better Friday afternoon against Curtis D’Amour (New Liskeard), who also was winless after three games.
After D’Amour scored a deuce in the ninth to tie the game at 6-6, Bolen made the hit to score one in the 10th to propel his rink to the 7-6 victory.
Bolen then wrapped up the round-robin portion of the six-rink competition with a 7-2 loss to Ryan Lilly (Sudbury) in just six ends on Saturday morning to wind up with a 1-4 record.
Only the top two teams from the round-robin advanced to the final.
< *c>Tough defeats
In the women’s draw, Enge opened with a heart-breaking 6-5 loss to Ashley Miharija (Fort William) on Thursday.
Leading 5-3 through seven ends, Enge’s rink faltered late in the game, allowing Miharija to score singles in each of the final three ends to steal the win.
Enge suffered another tough defeat later Thursday—this time at the hands of Vanessa Maloney (Sudbury).
Ahead by one, Enge stumbled and allowed Maloney to score two in both the eighth and ninth ends en route to a 10-7 loss.
Enge then wrapped up the four-team, round-robin on Friday morning with a 10-2 loss to eventual champion Tracy Horgan (Sudbury).
With only four teams vying for the junior girls’ title, all four qualified for the playoffs under the Page system, in which Enge faced Maloney in the 3 vs. 4 game Friday afternoon while Horgan squared off against Miharija in the 1 vs. 2 game.
In her re-match against Maloney, Enge scored three in a pivotal fifth end en route to a 7-4 win—setting up a return engagement Saturday morning with Miharija, who had lost to Horgan.
This time, though, Miharija dominated Enge right from the start, scoring early and often en route to a 10-1 blowout in five ends—eliminating Enge from further contention.
But Enge did not leave the Soo empty-handed. She was honoured by her fellow curlers with a sportsmanship award during the banquet Friday night.
Both Horgan and Harnden now will represent Northern Ontario at the national championships Feb. 3-11 in St. Catharines, Ont.