Kris Keating and his teammates wanted to take one last crack at it, and now they are slated to play in the provincial junior men's curling championship in January in Weyburn.
The Benson native and his rink of Andrew Batt (third), Marcus Lau (second) and Spencer McKnight (lead) won the B final at the southern playdowns on Sunday in Regina to clinch a berth at provincials.
Batt and Lau are from Estevan. Robert Keating is the team's coach.
Although the curlers have been busy with school and, in Keating's case, a promising baseball career, the skip said they wanted to give it another try in their last year of junior eligibility.
"The last couple of years I didn't really do much curling at all, just a little bit when I was at home," said Keating.
"It was tough to know what to expect right away, but we went to the two qualifying junior spiels and that was good for us, getting to play together."
The team got to provincials by beating Lucas Richards 8-4 in the B final at the Callie Curling Club.
Most of the scoring in the final came from single points, with multiple points coming in only two ends. Keating had both of them though, getting a deuce in the fourth and stealing three in the 10th end.
With Keating up by one without the hammer, he said Richards' team was trying to get two for the win, but it backfired on them.
Keating's rink got some rocks buried behind guards, and Richards' first shot picked and wrecked on a guard. His second shot was a draw to the button to tie the game, but it also wrecked.
The team won four of its first five games to get to the B final.
They beat James Barkway 11-3 in their opener on Friday, then dumped Estevan's Colby Fessler 7-1 and beat David Haines 10-7. They lost 7-3 to Daniel Selke in the A final to be knocked to the B side.
There, they edged Logan Wild 8-7 to make the B final.
As a tuneup, Keating said the team will play in a bonspiel in Regina the weekend before the Jan. 3-7 provincials.
Meanwhile, Fessler's rink included Dalen Brueckner (third), Caleb Fisher (second) and Justin Hanmer (lead), as well as coach Kent Hanmer.
The team opened with a bang, beating Wild 9-2 in their first game. They then lost to Keating to be knocked to the B event. There, they lost 7-2 to Richards, and they bowed out of the tournament with a 10-7 loss to Austin Williamson on the C side.
