Carman’s Shaela Hayward, Keira Krahn, India Young and Rylie Cox captured the Manitoba U21 Junior Curling Championship after a 9-6 victory over Heather Curling Club’s Zoey Terrick in Sunday evening’s championship final at the Carman Golf and Country Club.
Playing as the home team in Carman, Hayward was the best team all week long, as they were undefeated throughout the event with a record of 5-0. In the championship final, Hayward jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Terrick and never looked back.
The pivotal point in the game would come in the ninth end when the score was 7-6 as Hayward made a runback double to set up a score of two, which put the game out of reach at 9-6.
A consolation for the Terrick team is that they also earned a berth to the Nationals for finishing second in the province.
“We still had our confidence from our national win, and we just rolled with it all week,” said Young. “Our season has been a dream, and this is so special to all of us. We are so excited to represent Manitoba again at the national level.”
Team Hayward enjoyed the local crowds at the Provincials and was very happy that so many family and friends were able to come out and watch them compete.
“Playing at home was unreal as the crowd was so amazing all week,” said Young. “They were always out on the ice and supportive of us every single shot.”
Team Hayward is a group that has a lot of experience together as Hayward, Krahn, and Cox have curled together since Grade 5, while Young joined the group three years later.
They’ve won the past two provincial high school curling titles for Carman Collegiate, the Manitoba U18 title and captured gold at the Canadian U18 curling championships in Ottawa earlier this month.
Altona’s Dayna Wahl (Piper Stoesz, Gillian Hildebrand, Lauren Weselak) had a less than stellar week as they exited the Provincials with a record of 1-3.
On the boys side, Assiniboine Memorial’s Jordon McDonald, Dallas Burgess, Elias Huminicki and Cam Olafson won his third straight Provincial Junior Championship with a 7-5 win in the final over Virden’s Jace Freeman.
McDonald, who features Winnipeg Beach’s Elias Huminicki at second, went 5-1 in the event and was the dominant team on the week. Just like on the women’s side, Freeman will also be heading to Nationals as the second-place finisher.
Zach Norris, Ethan Brandt, Blake Good and Carter Malmquist of the Morris Curling Club finished in third place. Good, who hails from Stonewall, and his squad lost a 10-4 semifinal to McDonald on Sunday afternoon. They had a record of 4-3 on the weekend.
Morden’s Nash Sugden, Lane Fehr, Tanner Treichel and Ryan Thiessen also competed at the event but was the first team eliminated with a 0-3 record.
Hayward, Terrick, McDonald and Freeman will now go on to represent Manitoba at the 2024 Canadian U21 Curling Championships from March 24-31 in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
