What may have been the last sports-related provincial championship to be held in Newfoundland and Labrador for some time concluded Sunday at the Bally Haly curling facility in St. John’s.
That’s where teams skipped by Cailey Locke and Nathan Young claimed the 2020 provincial under-18 curling titles.
The competitions had begun on Wednesday and continued while, in the days that followed, there was a litany of cancellations, suspensions and postponements of sporting and athletic events and activities because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Young and teammates Sam Follett, Nathan Locke and Joel Krats, who curl out of the Re/Max Centre in St. John’s, were perfect in the U18 male division, winning all eight of their games, including Sunday’s final, which saw them defeat Liam Quinlan’s Bally Haly team 8-1.
The result provided both Young and Krats with their second major curling titles of the year.
Young, who is from Torbay, won mixed doubles gold with Hungary’s Laura Nagy at the 2020 World Youth Olympics. Krats, a Labrador City native who attends Mount Pearl Senior High School, was a member of Daniel Bruce’s team which claimed the 2020 provincial junior men’s title and finished as runner-up at the Canadian championships in B.C. last month.
Because of that latter showing, Krats was selected as a member on the Canadian team for the 2021 world junior men’s event.
Sunday’s loss was the second for Quinlan in a provincial final this year. His Bally Haly rink also made it to the championship game in last month’s N.L. under-16 event, won by Simon Perry.
There were eight teams in the male U18 section and five in the female U18s, where Cailey Locke (Nathan’s sister) edged Sarah McNeil Lamswood of Stephenville 5-4 in an extra end to take Sunday’s final.
Locke, Katie Peddigrew, Sitaye Penney and Kate Young had trailed 4-2 entering the eighth end Sunday, but tied the score by scoring two points with last-rock advantage, then won it by stealing a singleton in the ninth and extra end.
Locke and Co. were 5-2 in the competition, with one of their losses coming to McNeil Lamswood in the preliminary round.
It is the second provincial age-group title of the season for the Re/Max Centre rink, which also took the Newfoundland U16 championship last month in Gander.
While Curling Canada has announced the cancellation of a number of 2020 national events that were to have been held in the coming weeks, they haven’t yet made a final decision on the Canadian U18s, scheduled for Sudbury, Ont., from April 20-25. The organization sats the status of those championships —which would see the Young and Locke rinks representing Newfoundland and Labrador — will be re-evaluated in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Curling Newfoundland and Labrador has announce that the provincial mixed playdowns, which were to have been held next week in Stephenville, are being postponed.
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The national U Sports Canadian university curling championships also finished Sunday.
The event, held in Portage la Prairie, began Wednesday — and while other U Sports championships (hockey, volleyball) which started last week were cancelled mid-event, the curling went to its full conclusion.
The Memorial Sea-Hawks men’s rink of Daniel Bruce, Ryan McNeil Lamswood, Greg Blyde and Ben Stringer was among those that competed, finishing with a 1-7 record.
Twitter: @telysports
