Five consecutive district gold medals for junior curling, four district golds for senior curling, two consecutive regional medals for seniors and three trips to high school mixed curling provincial championships. Those curling accomplishment are just what has been accumulated by Unity Comprehensive High School curlers in the past five years.
Coaches Kyla Snell, junior program, and Martin Berg, senior program, are impressed with how high school curling has evolved into a dominant sport for UCHS. Snell assembled a team in early 2010 of mixed curlers and saw the potential in the chemistry, game strategy and playing skills of this team and they haven't looked back since. Once two of those players hit senior high school it was decided to move the two junior players the senior category and it has been a success story since then. Jonathan Neigum, Shelby Solomko, Mickayla Brandle and Devin Boser had repeated success in the junior high school categories and once they hit senior high, they were hungry for championship wins as representatives of their school.
In their first year of senior curling they captured both district and regional titles sending them to provincials as the youngest team competing. There they ended up fifth. This year they set their goals higher but suffered somewhat of a setback when Devin, the team's skip, suffered a knee injury that forced him out of the lineup. Second, Jonathon was moved to skip and alternate player Justin Sopyc was moved into second. The team went on to capture district gold again to advance them to regionals. They moved out of regionals to provincials in Abbey March 2 weekend. They went to Abbey with two goals - to place better than fifth, and also bring home a medal.
After winning their first two draws decisively, the team was headed to the A qualifier. However, after nearly five hours of down time between games, the team was not as prepared as they should have been and lost this draw to home town Cabri/Abbey. Saturday morning they came to the rink ready to capture the B qualifying spot, however, after some costly errors in this game, they were moved to an elimination match. The Warriors dug deep and came out with a win to capture a playoff spot.
From there they were placed again against the home team and came up one point short after the last rock of the last end sent them to the Bronze medal match. They were determined to fulfil their goal and controlled the game throughout heading to a bronze medal victory in high school mixed provincial championships, a first provincial medal in curling for the school.
Team UCHS was credited for the shot of the weekend when sweepers Justin and Mickayla pushed hard at the line calling from Shelby to ensure a precisely delivered rock from Jonathan would successfully make the double raise takeout they called. A loud roar came from the audience after this amazing shot and it was mentioned again during closing ceremonies as well as in the game notes on the website.
Coach Berg was proud of their grit and determination throughout the weekend as Saturday was a marathon, playing four back-to-back games to win their medal. While still revelling in this success it is hard not to look ahead to next year's possibilities knowing the team moved from fifth to third in two years and will have all the experience and momentum heading into next year's provincial playdowns.
On the junior side, curlers again set their sights on the top spot. Junior boys of Spencer Powell at skip, Cody Thompson, third; Zak Bos, second; Todd Bazley, lead; and Billy Robertson, alternate, wanted to retain their gold status at districts. Having won this title last year as the youngest team participating they were not eager to hand it over.
The were in Spiritwood Feb. 29 and March 1 to compete with that goal in mind. They did have a little more of a challenge this year with Spiritwood working hard to take away their gold. After beating them in the A event, losing to them in the B event, Team UCHS was not going to give up and they gritted out a shot from their skipper to hit and stick for the win.
On the girls side of things players Kyla Van De Meutter, skip; Migan Babchuk, third; Heather Wood, second; and Robyn Sperle, lead, went the same route as the boys winning the A qualifier. They too struggled in the rematch against Spiritwood making a third game necessary. They played with their experience and skill and successfully captured the district gold medal in their division too.
