THUNDER BAY – With little room for error remaining, substitute skip Mike Pozihun knows he just has to keep finding ways to win.
On Wednesday, after taking a 5-1 lead over Andrew Sinclair’s foursome during Tbaytel Major League of Curling action at the Port Arthur Curling Centre, the veteran skip found himself embroiled in a 5-5 game, with hammer coming home.
The stakes are huge.
Entering Draw 18 action, Team Denis Malette, whose skip has missed the season due to injury, were eight points behind Krista McCarville, holding down the eighth and final spot in the championship round of the postseason, with just three games left on tap.
Pozihun and his teammates, Rob Shubat, Andy Peloza and Pat Berezowski, know they likely need all nine available points, and got a third of them on Wednesday night, eking out a 6-5 win, scoring one in the eighth to pull out the victory.
The team now sits in 11th place in the standings, tied with Myles Stevens, three behind Bryan Burgess and Ashley Palmer and six behind McCarville, who lost in an extra-end draw to the button to fall 8-7 to Ron Rosengren, after scoring three in the sixth to take an 8-7 lead.
“We started out 0-5, so we started out very poorly. We had some good games, we just couldn’t get a win,” Pozihun said.
“Now we’re playing a little more consistent, but we still need to pick up the consistency. We can play with most of these teams, if we’re playing well.”
The foursome has gone 6-1-3-0 since dropping those first five games, and while it’s unlikely they’ll make their way into the championship round – only the top eight teams advance, with the next eight dropping to the consolation bracket and the bottom two teams going home for the season – they’re going to give it their best shot.
“We think if we win the next two. we’ve got a shot. It’s tough teams though. We’re going to try to win the next two and see if we can make it to the top half. If not, we’ll play. It’s all for getting good games in at this point,” said Pozihun, who won the 2015 Major League of Curling crown playing third for former Northern Ontario champion Scott Henderson.
At the top of the standings, two heavyweights battled it out on Wednesday night, with Trevor Bonot, the defending Northern Ontario men’s champion, outlasting Zach Warkentin 6-2 to grab a share of first place with his opening, who lost for just the second time all season.
Warkentin holds a game in hand on Bonot, who pulled away with a pair in the fifth and then added steals of one in the sixth and seventh.
In other action, Palmer kept her playoff hopes alive with a 9-7 win over Myles Stevens, who was eliminated from the championship round with the loss.
Al Hackner needed just six ends to dispatch Claire Dubinsky 8-1, Gary Weiss knocked off Bryan Burgess, whose son Dallas was skipping the match, by a 7-4 count, Ben Mikkelsen blanked Robyn Despins 7-0 and Dylan Johnston downed Rob Skinner 7-2 to grab a share of sixth place with Weiss, the two teams sitting with 29 points, seven behind Warkentin and Bonot.
Rosengren and Hackner are tied for third at 35 points, with idle Brian Adams Jr. in fifth with 34 points.
