Joey Payeur
When one plays beyond their years, it’s easy for them to ignore their birth certificates.
With no player on the roster above Grade 10, the Muskie mixed curling rink nearly carted off NorWOSSA gold medal on Monday at the Fort Frances Curling Club.
The fairy-tale ending wasn’t to be–but this is not the end of their story.
Fort High lost 7-5 to the Sioux Lookout Warriors in the gold-medal tie-breaker game. But with its top-two finish, they secured a berth in the inaugural NWOSSAA mixed championship set for Feb. 27-28 here.
The Warriors carried only three players the whole tournament but one of them was Grade 12 skip Jory King, who made a key double take-out that led to a clinching steal of one in the eighth end after Muskie Grade 9 skip Jordon Bazylewski wrecked his hit attempt on a mass of guards out front.
The Muskie lineup featured three Grade 9 rookies in Bazylewski, co-second Ben Olson, and lead Sammy Stone and two Grade 10s in third Mackenzie Taylor and co-second Macarthur Wilde.
“I’m very proud of our team,” said Taylor.
“It’s something considering I’m the oldest one on the team and I don’t feel very old,” she chuckled.
Fort High, which went undefeated at the NorWOSSA qualifier two weeks ago in Sioux Lookout, began play here Sunday with an 11-3 shellacking of the Whitefish Bay Winterhawks.
Then in their second game, the Muskies fell 8-6 to the Rainy River Owls led by skip Nick Teeple, with sister, Cass Teeple, at third, Evan Govier at second, and Abby Tolen at lead.
Facing the still-unbeaten Warriors, who won their first three outings, Fort High got in trouble early by giving up a four-ender in the second to trail 4-1.
But the black-and-gold stuck with it and wound up grabbing a 7-5 victory when King missed with a last-rock take-out attempt that gave the Muskies a steal of one.
Needing a win over the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints to clinch an NWOSSAA spot and a trip to the gold-medal final, the Muskies shook off a 2-0 deficit after two ends to score five-straight points.
That included a three-ender in the fourth after Saints’ skip Hannah Hulagrocki was light on a draw to give up the hefty steal.
The teams traded singles the final four ends to give the Muskies a 7-4 victory.
Sioux Lookout again grabbed a big lead early in the tie-breaker, scoring deuces in the first two ends–the second coming when Bazylewski flashed on two-straight take-out attempts to make it 4-0.
Olson’s big double take-out sparked an eventual hit-and-stick for two by Bazylewski in the third.
King then mistakenly raised a Muskie stone into the house after staring at a possible draw for three to turn what would have been a 7-2 lead into a steal of one for Fort High and just a 4-3 advantage.
The Muskies then set up the fifth brilliantly to put two buried behind cover, with King drawing short of the house to give up another steal of two to put the Muskies up for the first time 5-4.
But the veteran nailed an open draw for one in the sixth to tie it up, then forced Bazylewski to hit and stick and still give up one to put the visitors ahead 6-5 and pave the way for the decisive eighth.
“We failed to put up a guard in the seventh that hurt us and then [King] got that double in the eighth,” noted Taylor.
“Without that, we would have been pretty well off.
“We always seem to do better in the second halves of games,” she added.
“It just always seem to take us time to get comfortable with the ice.”
Taylor lauded Bazylewski for having such a huge impact on the team.
“Jordon has a lot of experience,” she said. “He’s been playing one year longer than I have and his mom [Charlotte Bazylewski] is the coach of the Bantam team.
“He’s always been a really good curler and is able to make a lot of really good shots,” Taylor remarked.
“He’s confident enough to take and make the risky shots.”
With NorWOSSA having been the end of the road for mixed curlers up to this point, Taylor is eagerly awaiting her team’s shot at playing for the newly-created NWOSSAA crown.
“I was sad last year that they didn’t have mixed at NWOSSAA,” she recalled.
“It’s great to be part of the first time for mixed at NWOSSAA and I feel pretty good about our chances.”
Rainy River wound up tied for third with St. Thomas Aquinas at 2-2.
The Owls lost 7-5 to the Saints to start the event Sunday, then were topped 6-4 by Sioux Lookout.
But the win over the Muskies boosted Rainy River’s spirits and they hammered Whitefish Bay 10-4 to conclude their round-robin.
