After two days of good curling, Estevan Curling Club’s junior bonspiel came to an end with a rivalry between Estevan and Lampman teams on Saturday. Following an intense game, Lampman captured the champion title, leaving ECS junior team in second place.
However, ECS coach Mike Keating said that his players showed a very decent game.
“The whole weekend was a whole success. We worked all year to get to that point. My Grade 9s... did amazing to make it all the way to the A-final like that,” said Keating.
The ECS junior team lost the A-semi-final game and slid down to B-side of the tournament, where they faced the St. Michael's team.
“In the B-final, Braydon (Ludtke), our skip, ended up having to draw through a port for the rock to get through: barely enough room for a piece of paper to fit and he made it through and put his final stone right on the button to win the final game in the B-finals. It was an amazing shot for him to do that,” recalled Keating.
Other ECS team members were third Olivia Wallewein, second Barrett Fleck and lead Rachel St. Onge.
Keating said that the ECS team curled exactly as they needed to, and Lampman made a shot when they needed to, making the A-side final intense and interesting to watch.
The ECS junior team was doing quite well forcing Lampman to make their take-outs.
“We stack to our game-plan, with drawing into the house and forcing Lampman to make their shots,” said Keating.
After winning the B event, ECS moved into the A event final.
They ended up being ahead 4-0 going to the fourth. Lampman battled that hard to tie the game in the fourth, and in the fifth end, ECS counted one and were winning 5-4 going to the sixth end.
“We ended up holding Lampman down to one rock. So Lampman ended up having that one draw to win the districts, where they needed to make a draw for two and they made it. It was a roller coaster of a game, that’s for sure,” said Keating, noting that even though the team didn’t win the title, they came up short by one shot, which was still a great result. The ECS junior team hasn’t had such good results for a long time.
“The thing is just how proud I am as a coach of how well they did. They battled every game. It’s been such an amazing year. They had a few downs, and they had a few ups this year. It was one of our best seasons yet,” said Keating. “They have another shot to go to districts. We are going to put them in the senior districts. It’s going to be a lot tougher for Grade 9s to play against Grade 12s, but you never know how they do, and, like I said, anything can happen when you curling.”
Keating noted that all other teams were “fantastic.” Estevan Curling Club manager Pauline Ziehl Grimsrud also pointed out that there were a lot of talented, strong curlers playing at the Power Dodge Curling Centre on Friday and Saturday.
There is more curling and more talents coming to the Power Dodge Curling Centre. Senior mixed doubles will take place next weekend, drawing curling teams from all around the southeast to Estevan. The weekend after, the ECS Grade 12 team along with others will compete in senior districts.
