THUNDER BAY – Myles Stevens knew he was in for a tough match.
Facing Dylan Johnston, fresh off a bronze-medal performance at the Canadian club championships in Barrie, his own team struggling to stay afloat in the standings as the Tbaytel Major League of Curling slides past the halfway mark of the season, there was little room for error.
In the early going, there weren’t many.
In fact, Stevens, third Andrew Hackner, second J.F. Breton and lead Rob Wilson, took advantage of Johnston mistakes, building on a 2-0 lead in the first end with steals of one in the second and third.
Johnston, a notoriously slow starter at times this year, didn’t let the 4-0 deficit get to him, rallying to score four in the fourth end to even the match.
Then, tied 5-5 in the seventh, Johnston scored a pair to take a seemingly commanding 7-5 lead heading into the eighth and final end at Port Arthur Curling Centre.
Stevens, however, had one more trick up his sleeve, getting enough weight on his final stone to erase Johnston’s shot stone, but not enough to roll out, giving him two to force overtime – a shot to the button competition for the extra point in the standings.
Stevens shot first, landed on the button and Johnston came up short on his attempt, sealing an 8-7 win.
“Luckily, in the sixth end, I had basically the same draw to the button against three, so I’d already played that shot with a lot of pressure,” Stevens said of his game-winning throw.
“It was a little easier the second time, actually.
Getting out in front in the early stages of the match was important, but not panicking after giving up four in the fourth was key to being able to walk away with the win.
“To get behind, that’s tough, but the main thing is just erase the end before. You give up four and there’s nothing you can do about it now, so you just move on to the next end,” Stevens said.
He certainly wasn’t expecting the start his foursome got off to on Wednesday night.
“It was shocking. We were just trying to give them a good game. They’re a really good curling team. We were hot today. We were missing the right way and we were making the right way,” said Stevens, his team improving to 3-1-0-7, tied for 12th in the 18-team standings.
The Stevens foursome wasn’t the only team that found themselves in a battle.
Krista McCarville trailed or was tied through four ends against Rob Skinner’s quartet, finally jumping in front 4-3 with a steal of one in the fifth.
Skinner, whose team has just one win in Major League play, wasn’t able to stave off the defending Northern Ontario women’s champions – or, to be exact, 60 per cent of the team, giving up four in the seventh to fall 8-4.
It was a tough match, said McCarville (6-0-1-2), saying in outings like this, she and her teammates just need to stick to their game.
“We have to just make a few shots. They played unbelievable, though,” McCarville said. “You can’t say anything when the skip is making everything. You just have to keep on them and try to make as many shots as you can and keep your fingers crossed.”
Luck, combined with a lot of skill, can be a deciding factor.
“We actually made all of our shots, and they missed some key draws there,” McCarville said of the decisive seventh. We started piling them in there and that was the one end the skip, B.J. missed his shots.”
In other action Ron Rosengren (10-0-0-1), who heads to the Canadian senior men’s championship in Moncton this weekend, maintained his hold on first, scoring a steal of two in the eighth to edge Ben Mikkelsen 6-5. Andrew Sinclair doubled up Ashley Palmer 6-3, Al Hackner’s squad did the same to Bryan Burgess, Zach Warkentin knocked off Robyn Despins 9-3, Trevor Bonot downed Chris Silver 8-2 and Brian Adams Jr. beat Gary Weiss 6-2.
Action resumes on Thursday night at 9:15 p.m.
