SUDBURY, Ont. — The situation is rather simple for Saskatchewan’s Rogan Snow and Chloe Semeniuk rinks at the Canadian men’s and women’s U20 curling championship heading into the final couple days of round robin competition.
Just win, baby.
With a clean sweep of their respective preliminary round games on Thursday and Friday, both teams will give themselves a chance at the playoff round — but they’ll need a bit of help from the rinks around them to make that happen.
Snow and his Saskatoon Sutherland rink of third Nathan Roy, second Dominic Barlow, lead Cole Hilderman and coach Richard Roy won their lone game on Wednesday, defeating Prince Edward Island’s Connor Bruce 8-3 to improve to 5-2 and sit in fourth place in Pool B, one loss behind the top three teams.
As lopsided as things turned out, it was close early, as Bruce scored one in the first, Snow three in the second and P.E.I. single points the next two ends for a 3-3 draw through four. Saskatchewan opted to blank the fifth before scoring a pair in the sixth and stealing three the next end to bring things to an early conclusion.
Snow wraps up his round robin during the 4 p.m. draw when they take on one of the teams they’re looking to catch in 5-1 Evan McDougall from Ontario.
Semeniuk and her Saskatoon Sutherland rink of third Leah Beausoleil, second Kelsey Wall, lead Lindsay Miller and coach Nicole Beausoliel are in a more difficult situation after losing back-to-back games on Wednesday to sit 3-3 and in a three-way tie with three-loss teams.
They opened Wednesday with a 10-2 loss to Alberta’s Emma DeSchiffart before falling 9-5 to B.C.’s Hannah Bartlett.
Semeniuk got in trouble early against Alberta, giving up four in the first end and after picking up single points the next two frames, another three in the fourth and two more in the fifth. Things were academic from there, and the teams shook hands after six ends.
Steals were the problem for Saskatchewan in the evening draw, as after exchanging deuces in the first two ends, B.C. would steal one in the third, two in the fourth and two in the fifth for 7-2 lead at the break. Semeniuk battled back with three in the sixth, but would get no closer after Bartlett put up a pair in the seventh.
Semeniuk’s final two round robin games will be among her toughest of the tournament as she faces the two Pool A leaders — Quebec’s Jolianne Fortin (5-1) at 12 p.m. Thursday and Nova Scotia’s Cassidy Blades at 8 a.m. Friday.
The top team from each of the two round robin pools in both men’s and women’s play advance to the semifinals, while the second and third place teams from each pool will play a cross-over quarter-final game.
Saskatoon Nutana’s Ethan Robinson, third Nathan Weiss, second Lewis MacDiarmid, lead Joshua Kirilenko and coach Craig Robinson haven’t had as much luck this week in the men’s draw, suffering their fifth-straight loss with a 7-1 defeat at the hands of Northern Ontario’s Riley Winters in their lone game Thursday.
After blanking the first, Winters picked up points in three straight ends to lead 4-0 through four. Robinson got one back in the fifth, but Northern Ontario scored three in the sixth and stole another the next end to close out the contest.
Robinson (1-5) finishes his Canadians appearance with games at 8 a.m. against Yukon’s Floyd and 6 p.m. against Ontario’s MacTavish on Thursday.
Be sure to keep an eye on www.curling.ca for updates throughout the tournament.
