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Terry McNamee delivers a shot during the Brandon Sun Westman Super League of Curling championship game against Duane Lang at the Brandon Curling Club on Sunday evening. McNamee earned his fifth Super League title with a 4-3 victory. (BRUCE BUMSTEAD/BRANDON SUN)
Terry McNamee joined exclusive company on Sunday.
McNamee became only the second skip to guide a team to three straight Brandon Sun Westman Super League of Curling titles — joining Neepawa’s Kelly Robertson — by defeating Duane Lang 4-3 in the league final at the Brandon Curling Club. The five-time champion, who plays with third Steve Irwin, second Travis Taylor and lead Travis Saban, was facing two with his final rock of the game, but calmly drew to four-foot to enter the league’s history books.
"It’s nice," McNamee said after the game. "I thought we were the best team all year, but Duane had a good year too and they finished first. We struggled early in this game and we came back to win."
The final featured the two best teams from the regular season. McNamee posted a 9-2 record and beat Pilot Mound’s Curtis McCannell 8-1 in their semifinal earlier in the day. Lang — who plays out of the Riverview Curling Club with Glen Lang, Jamie Moreland and Dwayne Stone — went 10-1 in the regular season and defeated Brandon’s Brian Fowler 8-5 in the other semifinal.
Lang and McNamee met in what proved to be a tight, defensive battle. Lang opened the scoring with a deuce in the second end and McNamee replied with one of his own in the fourth. The tide turned in the fifth when Lang was heavy with both of his draws and gave up a steal of one. He was forced to one in the sixth to tie the game.
Although Lang had aspirations of skipping the first Riverview team to a Super League title, he was happy with how well his first-year squad played all season and in the playoffs.
"When we first started this year while we were upstairs at one of our team meetings, I just said let’s not go 0-11. That’s all we want. Just don’t go 0-11," he said. "To go 10-1 is huge and second is just icing on the cake for sure. We’re pretty happy. We’ll be back next year."
McNamee earned $2,000 for winning the league title. Lang claimed $1,500.
There won’t be much time for McNamee to celebrate as his foursome will be in Neepawa on Wednesday to participate in the Safeway Championship, where they are seeded fifth in the 32-team field.
The skipper hoped the Super League playoffs would serve as a good tune-up for the provincial men’s curling championship, and he’s glad they had those two games.
"We had a couple ends where we didn’t play very well," he said. "There’s room for improvement for sure, but I’m happy overall with how we played."
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition February 4, 2013
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