THUNDER BAY – Ron Rosengren is hoping his foursome peaks next month in Moncton, when they start play at the 2024 Canadian Men’s Senior Curling Championship.
The team is looking ready to go, based on their start to the Tbaytel Major League of Curling season.
Rosengren, Gary Maunula, Dalie Wiersema and Bill Peloza have cruised to a 4-0-0-0 record and top spot in the standings, downing Claire Dubinsky’s squad 11-3 on Sunday at the Port Arthur Curling Centre.
The veteran skip finished 2-4 at last year’s senior nationals in Vernon, B.C., just missing out on the championship round, and Rosengren said they’re hoping to take their game to the next level this time around.
“We’ve had a really good start,” Rosengren said. “It’s nice to start that way. The game’s been good and we’ve been playing a lot.”
The team has been playing well, he added, and though there are areas he’d like to see cleaned up a bit in their game, it’s nothing that’s too concerning.
But they also don’t want to perpetuate any bad habits, with nationals rolling up fast.
“We’ve only got a month before we go to Moncton, so we’re trying to get as many games in as we can,” he said.
“I was supposed to be down here yesterday and I took a day off because the body was not feeling it. But next week I think we play Tuesday to Sunday, if we make it to some sort of final in the World Series bonspiel. We’re playing a lot of games. We’re probably going to get, I’m guessing, just over 30 games before we go, in a about a month-and-a-half. That’s pretty good for us.”
On Sunday, Rosengren opened with hammer and got his deuce, but gave the points right back to Dubinsky in the second end.
From there on in, it was all Rosengren.
The foursome put up three in the third to jump in front 5-2, then put it away in the sixth with a steal of four.
The Rosengren rink is one of three in the 18-team field that doesn’t have a tick in the loss column.
Zach Warkentin, who has two regulation and two overtime wins in four appearances, and Robyn Despins, with three regulation wins, are the others.
Warkentin continued his hot hand on Sunday, scoring three in the seventh to double up Ben Mikkelsen 8-4.
It’s been a good ride, so far, he said.
“It’s just a hot start. I just feel like last year we were a new team, so there were some kinks we had to work out. I hadn’t curled for a couple of years and I don’t know, there’s just a lot more confidence around us now,” Warkentin said.
“A lot of team-building last year was the difference.”
Warkentin said their success against Mikkelsen had a lot to do with draw weight.
“We were able to make some killer draws. That draw in 2 I had to pin that one. That’s one you like to make. That really was what the difference was, being able to put rocks in the right spot.”
Despins also continued rolling along, scoring three with hammer in the eighth to put away an Al Hackner squad being skipped by Frank Morissette, downing her opponent 9-5.
In other action, Mike McCarville skipped Trevor Bonot’s team to a 7-3 win of Denis Malette, Gary Weiss doubled up Dylan Johnston 4-2, Krista McCarville grabbed her second win in three appearances, beating Chris Silver 6-1, Bryan Adams Jr. downed Ashley Palmer 6-3 and Andrew Sinclair beat Rob Skinner 9-5 to claim his first win of the season.
