“Wow. Whoever said curling is boring needed to watch this game,” one of the spectators said as Central Collegiate captured the Moose Jaw high school boys city curling championship in a dramatic come from behind victory.
A win that came down to the final end, the final rock, the final push of the brush in what was a highly competitive matchup.
The Vanier team, skipped by Kendall Ebbett, had come that close to being crowned city champions.
A matchup Vanier Collegiate made possible by engineering a convincing fifth end handshake victory the day before.
Vanier opened the scoring in the first end when Ebbett, who had the hammer, drew for two.
Vanier would steal a pointing the second end on a clean miss. A shot which if it hadn't missed could have meant two points for Central as they had second shot in the house.
The third end saw Central score a single point with the score now 3 - 1 in Vanier's favour.
Vanier would pick up a point in the fourth end to make the score Vanier 4 and Central 1.
The fifth end would see Central draw to make the score Vanier 4 and Central 2.
In the sixth end, Vanier would once again take out a Central stone to score one and make the score Vanier 5 and Central 2.
The seventh end came down to a measurement - after Vanier just missed a double - as to who had third shot.
By just a smidgen Central had third shot to score three.
The game was tied 5 - 5 with Vanier having the hammer heading home.
In the final end, Central managed to put one rock in the house and them a log jam developed.
Vanier tried to break up the log-jam but was unsuccessful as Central simply plugged the hole.
Ebbett would throw his final stone being unable to remove Central's rocks and punch his way into the house for the win.
Central would win the championship defeating Vanier 6 - 5.
“It was close and we pulled it together in the end,” winning skip Laine Burnham said in a post game interview.
Burnham said each end was close and competitive which is exactly what Central had expected from Vanier.
Despite trailing throughout the majority of the game, he said he was confident Central could still win.
“It was kind of slipping away but I knew we could get it back.”
The team comes from various grades with the majority in junior high school.
Third Dante Cornea is in Grade 12, second Kai Gauthier is in Grade 10, lead Bradley Murrell and lead Ryan Kennedy are both in Grade 9.
He said with the majority of the team likely back next year there is a great future ahead for the group.
Both teams are off to district play in Gravelbourg this weekend.
