THUNDER BAY – In a triple-knockout format, it’s incredibly important to open with a win.
The sooner teams start sinking down the brackets, the less room for error there is, and in a field like the one assembled at Port Arthur Curling Centre this week for the Northern Ontario Men’s Curling Championship, even small errors are costly.
And, several of the teams learned on Tuesday, as the six-day event kicked off, it’s never a good idea to rest on a lead.
The competition is just too good.
Zach Warkentin almost found that out the hard way.
Warkentin, who lost the C-side final at last year’s playdowns, was up 5-0 after two ends, having put up four points in the second, and looked to be in command against fellow Thunder Bay skip Chris Silver.
Not so fast.
Silver responded in the third with four of his own, then took a 7-6 lead in the sixth before stealing singles in the seventh and eighth to jump in front 9-6.
Facing a tough task, Warkentin, lead Jamie Childs, second Travis Potter and third Tyler Stewart, put plenty of rocks in play in the ninth and made a hit for three on his final rock, tying the match 9-9. He filled up the rings again in the 10th, leaving Silver a tough angle raise, facing two stones locked near the button.
Silver couldn’t get the angle down and dropped to B-side after the opening draw, dropping a 10-9 decision.
“Our saying is just keep making shots,” Warkentin said.
“That’s all we can do, keep making shots.”
The 10th just set up well, he said.
“We got an opportunity to put one in there. We just had to play a lot little, quiet taps. We’ve had how many draws on this ice? We thought we had it pretty dialed. Ty made a good one, left it in a good spot for me to put ours in a perfect spot. Really, it just came down to, ‘Hey Zach, execute these last two and you’ve got a really good shot.”
Brian Adams Jr. had a slightly easier route to win No. 1, building a 10-3 lead over Kenora’s Dustin Kroeker and going on to a 10-6 opening-draw win, the two teams shaking hands after the eighth.
“We came out of the gates good. We got a good feel for the ice early and we got rocks in the right place in a few of those ends with hammer and it led to big scores on the board.”
Winning to open the 13-team event is crucial, Adams Jr. said.
“That’s something we wanted to do … was get a win early, stay in A and keep rolling from there and get some momentum.”
Momentum is exactly what Gary Weiss had in the early stages of his match against North Bay’s Brad Minogue, as he built a 7-2 lead through six ends, stealing singles in the fifth and sixth to go up by five.
It just took one misplaced shot to turn the game around.
Minogue made a hit for three in the seventh, then stole another in the eighth and trailed 7-6. Weiss would hang for an 8-7 triumph.
“You get up and you get a little comfortable, and when you’re playing at this calibre, one little mistake and they can come back. That’s what happened. We were up, my guard over-curled and Brad made an absolutely excellent shot for three to get right back in that game,” Weiss said.
“Now you have to bear down again and refocus and make sure we make our shots.”
Despite filling the rings with four stones and limiting Minogue’s options, Weiss wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“There’s always going to be a shot. You have to make sure you place them in a really good spot. We wanted to get them right in the four-foot and make sure when it came down to the last one he had either a really hard shot or nothing at all,” said Weiss, making his first appearance at provincials in 14 years.
In other action, Thunder Bay’s Dylan Johnston made the most of an extra end, with hammer, scoring two to edge Sault Ste. Marie’s Matthew Hunt 10-8. North Bay’s Jeff Brown edged Thunder Bay’s Frank Morissette 6-5.
The women’s event kicks off Wednesday at 4 p.m. The men’s event resumes at 11:30 a.m.
