Manitoba men steal to stay unbeaten

It looked for a moment as if only the Ontario women (Rachel Homan of Ottawa) would remain undefeated through Draw 11 Tuesday afternoon, after dismantling Northwest Territories (Amanda Moizis of Hay River), 19-1, at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors. For on the men’s side, Manitoba (Alex Forrest of Winnipeg) was on the verge of defeat, needing to steal in the 10th end against Alberta (Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton) to also remain perfect. Well, lo and behold, the Deer Lodge Curling Club did, as the Alberta skip rubbed an opposition counter in the eight-foot and another Manitoba stone in the four-foot with his last rock and wound up rolling a little too far. Thus, the 20-year-old appropriately-named Forrest, a carpenter by trade for Vantage Builders, was able to nail down another win, as Manitoba moved to 6-0, a game ahead of Ontario and Saskatchewan, both at 5-1.  .  Defending champion Prince Edward Island (Brett Gallant of Charlottetown) is at 5-2, as Alberta dropped to 4-3. “We, for sure, did (dodge a bullet). It was super close there,” said Forrest.  “I was pretty sure he had it right at the last second.  I think a combo of a little more weight than he wanted and maybe the line, but I’m not sure.” Alberta scored a deuce in the first end, then stole one in the second to open a 3-0 lead, but Manitoba fought back with three deuces to knot the affair at six, before a blanked ninth end. “We kind of had a tough one on mine in the first end and gave them their open deuce.  Then, they kind of had us in the second end and we cut them down to one.  We just had to chip away from there.” In other games, Ontario (Jake Walker of Kitchener) moved into a tie for second with idle Saskatchewan (Braeden Moskowy of Regina), besting winless Northwest Territories (Colin Miller of Yellowknife), 7-1.  Yukon (Thomas Scoffin of Whitehorse) improved to 2-4 with a 7-4 takedown of British Columbia (Tyler Klymchuk of Langley), which fell to 4-3, while Newfoundland and Labrador (Kelly Schuh of St. John’s) won its first game, 10-5 over Quebec (Kevin Rivest of Montreal). On the women’s side, Ontario now sits at 6-0, while idle Northern Ontario (Kendra Lilly of Sudbury) and Saskatchewan (Trish Paulsen of Saskatoon) are at 5-1. British Columbia (Dailene Sivertson of Victoria) improved to 4-3 with a 10-1 pounding of Yukon (Sarah Koltun of Whitehorse), while Alberta (Nadine Chyz of Calgary) also joined the 4-3 club with a tight 8-6 win over Manitoba (Breanne Meakin of Winnipeg).   The other game saw Quebec (Camille-Marie Lapierre of Otterburn Park) defeat Newfoundland and Labrador (Jen Cunningham of St. John’s), 9-5, as both are now at 2-4, along with Yukon. Draw 12 goes tonight at 7:00 pm.