Irwin reaches playoff round at Viterra

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2023 (1214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEEPAWA — It’s been a long few weeks for Steve Irwin.

After his father Brent passed away following a battle with cancer on Jan. 22, Irwin’s life has been a whirlwind in the leadup to this year’s Viterra Championship.

Now that he’s back on the ice, Irwin and his teammates from the Brandon Curling Club are among the final eight rinks vying for the Buffalo and a chance to compete at next month’s Tim Hortons Brier in London, Ont.

Irwin, third Travis Taylor, second Travis Brooks and lead Travis Saban qualified for the playoff round at the Yellowhead Centre on Friday morning with a 7-5 extra end over Reid Carruthers’ second-seeded squad from Morris.

They were matched up against JT Ryan’s team from Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club in an ‘A’ semifinal game Friday night, which was in progress at press time.

“It’s been a pretty crazy month for all of us to be honest,” Irwin said.

“For us to be winning games here at the provincials and playing like we have been, it’s just a really good feeling.”

Irwin had a little bit of everything on his road to the playoff round.

The team scored four points in the 10th end to beat Justin Reynolds of Winnipeg Beach by a score of 6-5 Wednesday and prevailed in an 11-5 matchup with Sean Grassie’s squad from the Deer Lodge in Winnipeg on Thursday to set up their meeting with Carruthers.

Irwin jumped out to a 4-1 lead at the fifth end break of Friday’s game and withstood an impressive second-half charge by Carruthers to earn the extra-end triumph, capped with a takeout to score two points in the 11th.

“We knew that once Reid and them had their backs against the wall, they were going to be tough as they are capable of getting three or four points at any time,” Irwin said.

“During this whole week, we’ve done a pretty good job of making sure that teams don’t build up ends on us and I think that approach has worked out pretty well for us.”

Taylor thinks the different types of games that he and his teammates played should help them going forward.

“We’ve kept our heads in the game no matter what the score is,” Taylor said. “We’ve been grinding right to the end ever since we got here and it paid off with a really good game against Reid.

“Our focus ever since we arrived in Neepawa has been on ourselves. We haven’t strayed too far from the game plan so far and it’s worked for us.”

While they missed out on competing at the 2022 Viterra Championship in Selkirk, the Irwin rink reached the final eight at their last trip to the event three years ago in Winnipeg and made it to the 3-vs.-4 Page playoff at the 2018 provincials in Winkler before falling to Ryan.

For Irwin, this week’s run is reminding him of what he, Brooks and Saban did with Terry McNamee a decade ago at the Yellowhead Centre, when they made the playoffs through the ‘A’ event but lost Page playoff qualifying games to Jeff Stoughton and Mike McEwen.

“We’re used to grinding it out with back-to-back games before even getting to the Friday night draw, so to have that extra bit of rest is pretty nice,” Irwin said.

“It takes a little bit for us to get playing well out here as we need to get some ends in us. When you are in an arena setting, you have to get comfortable with throwing on ice that isn’t what we regularly play on in club events.

“When you look at guys like Reid, that’s all they play on, so it’s just a normal game for them.”

Carberry’s Braden Calvert and his team from the Fort Rouge – which includes third Kyle Kurz, second Ian McMillan and lead Rob Gordon – also advanced to the playoff round with a 6-4 win over Corey Chambers’ quartet from the Fort Garry.

“We’re playing as well as we’ve had all year, which is pretty encouraging,” said Calvert, who beat Grant Shewfelt and Tanner Lott earlier in the tournament.

“To be able to throw rocks every day for the last three weeks compared to the fall when we were hardly stepping on the ice … it’s made a ton of difference and we’ve been doing what we’ve wanted to for the most part in our first three games.”

Calvert went up against Justin Richter in his opening-round playoff round game last night.

Matt Dunstone and Ryan Wiebe also qualified for the final eight through the ‘A’ bracket, with Chambers and Carruthers advancing from the ‘B’ side.

Gladstone’s Jeff Stewart saw his tournament end on Friday afternoon in a tough 6-5 ‘B’ event semifinal loss to Ryan.

Stewart held a 5-1 advantage at the fifth-end break, but Ryan slowly clawed his way back and stole five points in the second half to pull off the comeback.

Kelly Marnoch of Carberry, Jace Freeman’s Virden rink — who were missing their skip as he competed in the U18 nationals in Timmins, Ont., — and Carberry product Joey Witherspoon’s squad from the Assiniboine were eliminated from the event on Thursday night.

The Page playoff begins today at 6 p.m. The semifinal is slated for 9 a.m. Sunday, with the final getting underway at 2:30 p.m.

» lpunkari@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @lpunkari