Rising to the occasion.
Okotoks skip Cailen Knopp led his first-year foursome to a three-game sweep at the Optimist U18 Men’s Curling Districts at the Airdrie Curling Club last weekend to book their ticket to the southern playdowns for the first time.
“We played a lot better than we have in some of our last games,” Knopp said. “We had a few weekends off and came really strong into this bonspiel. A lot stronger than we’ve been playing most of the year.
“It went a lot better than we expected.”
Team Knopp made quick work of Ayden Whittmire in the bonspiel opener, picking up three in the sixth end to cruise to an 8-3 win over the Lethbridge based team.
Game 2 was considerably more dramatic.
Knopp picked up one in the ninth end to slip past the Oilfields Curling Club’s Jared Palanuik 5-4 to advance to the A-2 final.
The seesaw final pitted the Okotoks skip with Banff’s Desmond Young. Knopp picked up three in the second end to jump out to a 4-0 lead before seeing it slip away reflected by a 6-6 scoreboard after seven ends. Knopp took advantage of hammer in the eighth.
“We had a pretty strong start and towards the middle I missed a few shots and they started to outplay us,” Knopp said. “At the end we came back and made it a close game.
“We had hammer. I had the last rock, there were no rocks in play except two guards to the right and I had to just touch any of the rings to win.”
Knopp, along with third Michael Dumont, second Graham Barnouw and lead Mathias Babin, are off to the southern playdowns less than a year after becoming a united team.
“We’re pretty happy with it. We didn’t get to go last year, it was pretty frustrating,” Knopp added. “This year getting to go, we know we have a chance of getting to provincials and doing well in southerns.
“We’ve been pretty well bonded. On ice and off we’re really good friends and that’s really helped us. We agree on shots, agree on strategy and it works pretty well.”
Foothills foursomes had a field day at districts.
Palanuik shook off the loss to Knopp and qualified through the B-2 event. Palanuik, third Liam Purcell, second Nicholas Warkman and lead Spencer Schneider, edged Delia’s Jared Mason 7-3 to qualify for southerns.
Fellow Black Diamond curlers Team Libbus navigated their way through an up-and-down weekend to grab one of the final berths out of the C-event. Skip Jacob Libbus, third Riley Helston, second Pacen Anderson and lead Tyler McWillie, finished with a record of 4-2 in Airdrie. Team Libbus earned its elusive qualification at the expense of Connor Zeidell, dispatching the Medicine Hat skip 5-1 in the C-event.
Team Smith, with Okotoks’ Michael Steele at second, also advanced through the C-event by getting past Cochrane’s Jacob Hill by a 5-1 count.
The Optimist U18 Men’s Curling Southern playdowns run Feb. 5-7 at the Cochrane Curling Club.
For more information go to saca.ca
