KAKABEKA FALLS – Dallas Burgess was down a player and facing the top team on the Tbaytel Major League of Curling circuit.
The 16-year-old skip, a student at St. Ignatius High School, didn't let the moment faze him, even when his team gave up three in the fourth end at the Kakabeka Curling Club on Wednesday night to the Krista McCarville rink and fell behind 4-2.
With his lead, Brayden Sinclair, sidelined with an ankle injury, Burgesss, second Jackson Dubinsky and third Matt Duizer shrugged off the shoddy end, evened the match with a deuce in the fifth and then stole two more in the sixth to take control of the game when McCarville's draw to the four foot came up short.
The 6-5 win, the first for the team in eight attempts this season, was a huge confidence boost for the under 18 squad.
“It felt really good and we played really well tonight,” said Burgess, son of long-time local curler Bryan Burgess, who was perched in the dining room above, taking notes as both a proud father and the team's coach.
“We just stuck to our game and came back to our home club and got the job done.”
Burgess showed nerves of steel in the eighth and final end. McCarville had multiple rocks in the rings and was threatening to steal a point to send the game to an extra end – this year a shot to the button – or to take two and win it outright.
But the young skip made a perfect shot, forcing McCarville to make a difficult final shot to remove a mostly buried shot stone hugging the four-foot. The eight-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts representative, who entered play at a league-best 6-1, wasn't able to get the angle right and Burgess had the long-awaited victory, downing his opponent 6-5.
The loss leaves McCarville in a tie for first with the idle Dylan Johnston rink at 6-2.
For the rest of the pack, it was a chance to draw closer to top spot and one of the seven playoff positions.
Gary Weiss, in the thick of the hunt found himself in a battle with the winless Britney Malette foursome and was clinging to a 4-3 lead in the sixth, without hammer, when fortune shone his way.
Malette (0-8) was facing four with her final short of the end, but came up short, giving Weiss a steal of four that gave him an 8-3 lead, which proved to be the final.
“They made it really tough on us. In the sixth end, coming home, the ice got really challenging. It just happened that she had to take a shot that was way out in the wings into the frost coming in and it ended up coming up a little bit short,” said Weiss, whose team evened their record at 4-4.
“Other than that the end was well curled by both teams and just one shot made the difference here.”
The win pulled Weiss into a tie for ninth with Mike Desilets, who scored two in the seventh with the hammer and stole another point in the eighth to earn an 8-4 win over Ben Mikkelsen (5-4).
“We just kept it simple,” said Desilets, who will represent Northern Ontario next year at the Canadian Masters championship.
“For the last five games we weren't really executing and we were playing a little too aggressive after last year winning the seniors. You kind of have the mindset that you're going to make everything and with the slow start and COVID this year and not practising, we weren't making a lot and getting into trouble.”
In the only other match of the night, Trevor Bonot scored four in the second end and held on to down Mike McCarville 7-4, surviving steals of one in the fifth and sixth ends that closed the gap to 5-4 at the time.
