Staff
Chris Silver and his rink has reached so many provincials, it must feel like old hat by now.
Now they want a new feeling: that of standing on top of the mountain.
The Fort Frances skip and his team of third Daniel Vandenbrand, second Jason Bazylewski, lead Davis Jackson, and fifth Griffin Garuk (Atikokan) went 4-0 to capture the NOCA 2017 Tim Hortons U-18 Region 1 boys’ curling championship in Sioux Lookout over the weekend.
Their sights now are set on the U-18 provincial championships Feb. 23-26 in Geraldton.
“The boys did great,” said coach Ron Silver.
“They were making all their shots and shooting over 80 percent as a team for the weekend,” he noted.
With the Fort Frances segment of the team consisting of the defending OFSAA silver-medalists, the rink lived up to the role of heavy favourite quite easily.
They opened play by cruising past Bazylewski’s younger brother, Jordon, and his Fort Frances team of third Ben Olson, second Kian McEvoy, and lead Brett Schram by a 10-2 score in seven ends.
Silver then dumped Red Lake’s Andre Morin 8-1 in just six ends.
“We got two in the first, gave him one in the second, then got two back in the third and stole three ends in a row after that,” noted Ron Silver.
Silver then clinched first place by romping to a 10-0 win over Bazylewski in four ends before scoring in just two ends but still beating Morin 5-3 in their final game.
Down 1-0 after two, Silver struck for three in the third. Then after giving up singles in the fourth and sixth ends, he notched a deuce in the seventh before running Morin out of rocks in the eighth.
“They couldn’t get their guards up in that last end and everything we could, we hit,” noted Ron Silver.
Morin beat the Bazylewski rink 6-3 in their only meeting.
The two teams were slated to play a second time Sunday morning, but opted to forego the game and head home Saturday once Silver already had clinched top spot.
“The younger team got a great learning experience out of it,” stressed Ron Silver.
In the U-18 girls’ regionals, also held in Sioux Lookout, Tory Beaudry of Fort Frances pushed host rink Cassidy Romyn to a Sunday afternoon tie-breaker after both teams finished with 3-1 records during the double round-robin.
Beaudry and her team of third Anika Beaudry, second Katrina Slomke, lead Andrea Schram, and fifth Ashley Payne forced the tie-breaker with a come-from-behind 7-6 win over Romyn.
The locals rallied from a 4-1 deficit after three ends—scoring deuces in the fourth, sixth, and seven ends—before holding Romyn to just one in the eighth.
The tie-breaker then went the Fort’s way early, with Beaudry picking up two in the first and stealing one in the second to lead 3-0.
Romyn got two in the fourth, countered by Beaudry’s single in the fifth to make it 4-2.
The roof caved in on the locals in the fifth, though, as Romyn exploded for five in the fifth to vault in front 7-4.
Beaudry tried to hang tough with two in the sixth to draw within one.
But Romyn added another five-ender in the seventh to pocket a 12-6 win to advance to the provincials.
“The girls played great and adjusted to the ice very well,” noted coach Kim Beaudry.
“It’s just unfortunate that they couldn’t hold it together in the final four ends.
“That fifth end was just a series of missed shots and it got away on them,” she said.
“[But] the girls are improving and a lot more confident with every game.
“In the first half of that tie-breaker, Anika and Tory had phenomenal games, but they all struggled in the second half,” Kim Beaudry added.
She also knows the Sioux Lookout squad likely will be the biggest obstacle to the Beaudry rink advancing to the all-Ontarios for a second-straight year for the Fort team that also serves as the Muskie girls’ squad.
“We’ve played [Romyn] five times this year and we’re 2-3 against them,” said Kim Beaudry.
“There’s a good chance there will be more competitive teams, like Rainy River, but [Sioux Lookout] will be the team to beat in NorWOSSA play,” she warned.
Meanwhile, the coach said it was likely the team would attend the last-chance U-18 provincials qualifier Feb. 3-5 in Kakabeka Falls.
Beaudry got rolling with an 11-4 win over fellow Fort Frances skip Mackenzie Taylor and her rink of third Daffni Chabot, second Lauren Penney, and lead Sami Stone.
A five-ender in the fourth turned a 2-1 Taylor lead into a 6-2 advantage for the more veteran rink.
Steals of one in the fifth and three in the sixth turned out the lights, although Taylor did nab her only deuce of the game in the seventh before Beaudry closed things out with one in the eighth.
Romyn thrashed Beaudry 10-2 in six ends in their second game, using a four-ender in the first and three more in the third to leap in front 7-1.
Beaudry then laid the same kind of pounding on Taylor—scoring one in the first and adding steals two, one, and four over the next three ends to elicit handshakes.
Taylor ended the regionals at 0-4 as Romyn used two three-enders and two deuces as part of an 11-1 runaway victory in six ends in their first match.
The second was even more rocky for Taylor’s crew as Romyn led 7-0 after two ends en route to 13-2 rout in six.
“They’re getting a lot of experience and you’ve got to start somewhere,” Kim Beaudry reasoned about the newer Fort Frances rink coached by Taylor Hartlin.
“I told them a lot of curlers [their] age don’t even get to see eight-end games before high school, so it’s good for them to be up against this kind of competition and begin the process,” she added.
“They learned a lot and improved a lot in every game.”
