THUNDER BAY – Through four ends, Brian Adams Jr. found himself staring up at a 4-0 deficit.
He wasn’t fazed.
Not in the least.
Adams, the 2023 Tbaytel Major League of Curling champion, just kept plugging away, slowly but surely clawing his way back into his Draw 3 contest on Wednesday night at the Port Arthur Curling Centre against Andrew Sinclair’s foursome.
He scored a single with hammer in the fifth, stole one more in the sixth and two in the seventh to jump in front 5-4 after seven ends.
Then he played a near perfect eighth end, forcing Sinclair to attempt a tough shot with his final stone, facing three Adams rocks.
He didn’t get the curl he needed and Adams, Mark Koivula, Colin Koivula and Joel Adams stole another two points to secure a 7-4 triumph, improving to 2-0-1-0, good for a five-way tie for fourth in the very crowded 18-team standings.
“We just talked after every end and said we’ve got to play a good end, put a couple points on the board and go from there,” Adams said.
When it happens, the confidence just builds from there, he said.
“Absolutely it did, because once we did get a good score in, we got in a bit of a groove and started putting rocks in the right places and lined up a couple of good steals.”
Without hammer in the eighth, the rink had to play aggressive, and lined the house with stones, while ensuring Sinclair (0-0-3-0) didn’t have great angles to get at shot rock.
“We had a couple rocks in good spots and they had a couple of little misses during the end, so we were able to capitalize on that. We put a lot of pressure on his last couple of shots,” Adams said.
Adams wasn’t the only contender looking to shake off an early season loss and get back into the win column.
Trevor Bonot, who lost to coach Al Hackner the week before, had a relatively easy run on Wednesday night, taking advantage of some big misses by opposing skip Myles Stevens to pull off a 7-0 win, the two teams shaking hands after four ends.
Stevens flashed on both his stones in the third, giving Bonot a steal and complete control of the match, up 5-0 at the time.
“No games in this league are really that easy, but we just caught onto the ice again a little quicker,” Bonot said.
“We’ve been playing a lot of games this season, so that helps.”
Dylan Johnston, who since 2020 has skipped his team to a pair of Major League titles, was in a battle all night long with two-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts runner-up Krista McCarville. The two teams were tied 3-3 through six ends, with Johnston taking a 4-3 lead in the fifth and stole singles in the seventh and eighth to pull out a 6-3 and improve to 2-0-0-1.
“We always have a tough game against Krista,” Johnston said. “I think she plays us hard, we play hard and it’s about who misses less shots.”
Needing two in the eighth to force a tiebreaker, McCarville was facing three on her final shot, and was able to pick two of them out of harm’s way, but left the third for the scoring point, and fell to 1-0-1-0.
“It’s a good start to the year,” Johnston said. “Much better than last year when we had a rough start. So hopefully we can keep it going.”
In other action, Gary Weiss made a draw, facing two, with his final rock to edge Claire Dubinsky 8-6, Zach Warkentin scored one in the eighth to slip past Denis Mallette 4-3, Ashley Palmer won her second straight, downing Ben Mikkelsen 6-4, Al Hackner made easy work of Chris Silver, winning 9-1 and Ron Rosengren joined Hackner at 3-0-0-0, beating Bryan Burgess 7-3.
