The junior men and women’s provincial champions have been crowned after an eventful six days of curling action at the Parksville Curling Club.
Sixteen of the best teams from across B.C., eight men’s, eight women’s, took to the four sheets of ice at the PCC with the hopes of representing the province at the nationals in Newfoundland at the end of January.
Corryn Brown’s rink, from Kamloops, and Paul Henderson’s team, from Victoria, were crowned champions, with both taking a loss to the teams they would later face in the finals.
Brown’s team won their final 8-2, while Henderson and his team won 9-8 in a close game.
The Henderson rink, hailing from the Victoria Curling Club, were looking to be the fourth straight Victoria club to win the provincial title. To make it happen, Henderson and his team had to beat Cody Tanaka and his club from Abbotsford, who had beaten Henderson 6-4 in round robin play.
Both teams traded points early on, with neither looking to take full advantage. Headed in to the sixth end, the teams were all square at 5-5, which was where Henderson and his rink took the game over.
The sixth end saw Henderson’s rink score two, followed by another in the seventh and one more in the eighth end, to take a 9-5 lead. Team Tanaka would make it interesting in the end but Henderson’s team would prove to be too much, taking the final 9-8.
“There’s been a lot of success at this club the last four years,” Henderson said. “The three previous winners of this tournament have come from our club, so it was nice to win it for the fourth year in a row.”
It was much of the same road for skip Brown and her team out of Kamloops, as they had to go through defending provincial champion Sarah Daniels and her team, who had beaten Brown 10-3 earlier in the round robin portion.
Things were a little different this time around, as Brown and company were able to steal points early in the match, taking a 4-0 lead in to the sixth end.
Daniels would put one on the board in the sixth but Brown and her team would stay the course, putting up three more in the seventh end before wrapping it up with a 8-2 final through nine ends.
This was the second win in the last three years for Brown, whose squad won in 2013.
“It was good to win after coming so close last year,” Brown said after capturing another provincial title.
“To get those four steals early on against them was good for our team. It really got the ball rolling for us and we were able to maintain the rest of the way.”