Ontario and Manitoba women off to good starts at Juniors

Ontario’s Rachel Homan of Ottawa and Manitoba’s Breanne Meakin of Winnipeg got off on the winning foot at the 2010 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors  Saturday. Homan, who finished the runner-up at last year’s Canadian Juniors in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, disposed of  Northern Ontario (Kendra Lilly of Sudbury), 9-4, stealing a deuce in the third end, then shutting the door by counting three in the eighth. Homan has a new second in Laura Crocker for this year’s championship, replacing over-age Alison Kreviazuk, but third Emma Miskew and lead Lynn Kreviazuk remain on board.   She also participated in the pre-Trials event in Prince George last November, but was ousted by Marie-France Larouche in the C semi-finals. Meanwhile, Meakin, who played lead last year for Kaitlyn Lawes’s winning Canadian and world junior silver medallist team,  has assumed skip duties this year.   Her St. Vital Curling Club foursome opened with an emphatic 11-3 pasting of Yukon (Sarah Koltun of Whitehorse).  The game was decided on steals by Meakin of one in the fourth, then deuces in the fifth and sixth ends. In other women’s Draw 2 games, Quebec (Camille-Marie Lapierre of Otterburn Park) welcomed Northwest Territories (Amanda Moizis of Hay River) with a 15-0 trouncing, stealing two, five, four, one and two points from the second through sixth ends, while British Columbia (Dailene Sivertson of Victoria) clipped Alberta (Nadine Chyz of Calgary), 10-9, stealing the winning point in an extra end. On the men’s side, Manitoba (Alex Forrest of Winnipeg) squeaked by Yukon (Thomas Scoffin of Whitehorse), 4-2, Quebec (Kevin Rivest of Montreal) bested Northwest Territories (Colin Miller of Yellowknife), 6-3, stealing the ninth and 10th ends, Ontario (Jake Walker of Kitchener) took out Northern Ontario (Christian Tolusso of Thunder Bay), 6-3 and Alberta (Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton) edged British Columbia (Tyler Klymchuk of Langley), 6-5. Play continues this evening with Draw 3 at 9:30 pm, at both Colisée Cardin and Club de Curling Aurèle-Racine.