THUNDER BAY – Zach Warkentin needed to be just about perfect on his final stone for a shot at first place in the Tbaytel Major League of Curling standings.
It was nerve-wracking, he said, after managing to thread his stone through a pair of guards to wipe away Krista McCarville’s shot stone and secure a 7-6 win that earned his team the No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs in two-and-a-half week’s time.
Getting the No. 1 seed, and a rematch against McCarville in the quarterfinals on Feb. 1, was never going to be easy.
McCarville, who scored four in the fifth end to erase an early 4-1 Warkentin lead, is rounding into form at the right time, at the top of her game, Warkentin said.
They were going to need every trick in their curling bag to pull out the win.
“You know they’re on the top of their game and they want it just as much as we do. It was great. I was just excited that we had the opportunity to get that first spot. It was nice that she left me that little piece at the end so I could come and grab it.
It was the difference between finishing first and finishing in third, the win vaulting Warkentin and his teammates, lead Jamie Childs, second Travis Potter and third Tyler Stewart, past Trevor Bonot and the venerable Al Hackner, whose 6-1 win over Ashley Palmer gave him sole possession for top spot for about an hour or so on Wednesday night.
Warkentin (12-3-2-0) finished with 42 points, while Hackner (13-0-2-2) wound up with 41 and Bonot (13-0-4-0), who wrapped up round-robin play last week, took third, with 39.
Making the final shot was never a given, Warkentin reiterated.
“I actually leaned into my third and I was like, ‘My heart’s going crazy, Ty.’ Hopefully I’ll have lots of shots for the win like that (at provincials), so it’s nice to kind of sit down and make one,” he said.
Warkentin, who lost just twice, said being a second-year team, they’ve learned a lot about what it takes to play together as one.
“We always have each other’s backs. I think that’s the biggest part of it, that at the end of the day, we know that we’re a team. We know that we’re all going to make shots for each other. The first year is chemistry building, whereas now I feel like we’ve really solidified ourselves as a team and after that it’s just making shots.”
Warkentin said he took a long hard look at the scoreboard after McCarville scored her four in the fifth, then quickly put it out of his mind.
“I had to shake it off, for sure. But it was kind of nice. It was at the home end, so I was looking at the scoreboard and I said, ‘OK Zach, we’re down one with hammer. It’s the best that you want to be in this situation, going into the sixth end, so calm down, make some shots.”
Make them he did.
In other round-robin finales, Claire Dubinsky’s substitute team knocked off Bryan Burgess 6-2, Robyn Despins whitewashed Rob Skinner 13-0, Dylan Johnston beat Brian Adams Jr. 6-2, Denis Malleted beat Ron Rosengren 7-1 and Gary Weiss downed Myles Stevens 9-1.
Hackner will take on Weiss in a second quarterfinal match, with Bonot drawing Rosengren and Adams and Johnston tangling for a second straight Major League outing, both skips leading their respective teams into next week’s Northern Ontario championships, also being staged at the Port Arthur Curling Centre.
In the consolation bracket, Burgess gets Dubinsky, Malette plays Chris Silver, Palmer faces off against Ben Mikkelsen and Despins meets Stevens.
