Ontario women 8-0, Manitoba men 8-1 at Juniors

Ontario (Rachel Homan of Ottawa) kept its perfect record intact, squeezing out a 9-7 decision over gritty British Columbia (Dailene Sivertson of Victoria) Wednesday evening at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors. The victory improved Ontario’s record to 8-0, with three games remaining against Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia  and Alberta. Homan, last year’s runner-up when losing the Canadian junior women’s final to Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, has been flawless so far, but was extended to the limit in Draw 15. Ontario’s closest pursuers, Saskatchewan (Trish Paulsen of Saskatoon) and Northern Ontario (Kendra Lilly of Sudbury), both at 7-2, were idle Wednesday night. In other games, Alberta (Nadine Chyz of Calgary) moved into fourth place at 6-3 with a 16-5 pasting of winless Northwest Territories (Amanda Moizis of Hay River).  With the loss to Ontario, British Columbia fell to 5-4. Manitoba (Breanne Meakin of Winnipeg) lost to Quebec (Camille-Marie Lapierre of Otterburn Park), 9-8, giving up a steal in the 10th end, to drop to 4-5, while the host province improved to 3-6.   Newfoundland and Labrador (Jen Cunningham of St. John’s) is now 4-5 after a 6-5 extra win over Yukon (Sara Koltun of Whitehorse), which fell to 2-6. Over in men’s, Manitoba (Alex Forrest of Winnipeg) whipped Quebec (Kevin Rivest of Montreal), 8-1 in six ends to stay in front of the pack with an 8-1 mark. Idle Saskatchewan (Braeden Moskowy of Regina) is next at 7-2, followed by Ontario (Jake Walker of Kitchener), now at 6-2 after dropping an 8-6 decision to British Columbia (Tyler Klymchuk of Langley), giving up a steal of a deuce in an extra end.  British Columbia moved to 6-3. Defending champion Prince Edward Island (Brett Gallant of Charlottetown), with a 7-3 mark, had an evening bye. In other games, Northwest Territories (Colin Miller of Yellowknife) won its first game of the week, hammering Alberta (Brendan Bottcher of Edmonton), 7-1, while Newfoundland and Labrador (Kelly Schuh of St. John’s) clipped Yukon (Thomas Scoffin of Whitehorse), 5-2 to improve to 3-6. The round robin continues on Thursday with draws at 10:00 am, 2:30 pm and 7:00 pm, followed by Friday’s final two draws at 8:00 am and 12:30 pm.   After that, the first place teams advance to their respective finals on Sunday, live on TSN, while the second and third place teams meet in Saturday semi-finals.