Lyburn wins Brandon bonspiel, claims berth

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This article was published 14/01/2019 (2643 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

William Lyburn took all the pressure off before the Brandon Men’s Bonspiel final, and now his curling team is as relaxed and confident as it could be.

The former Brandonite, along with Daley Peters, Kyle Doering and Brendan Bilawka defeated Carberry’s Steve Irwin 3-1 in the final of the 128th running of the event at the Brandon Curling Club on Sunday afternoon.

“I’m super proud of the guys. It’s been a tough season, which just happens when you have new guys,” Lyburn said. “The biggest thing is trust, just having trust in one another. These guys have been pedigree-stock winners, it’s just up to gaining their trust in me, and I think I showed them this weekend that that’s how I can play.”

The 43-year-old earned his berth into the Viterra Championship with a 6-3 victory over Jeff Stewart, and earned $1,400 for the championship win — his sixth in 11 years at the event.

Irwin and his team of Travis Taylor, Travis Brooks and Travis Saban already secured a berth at regionals in Carberry, with an 8-5 victory over Cale Dunbar. Irwin denied Dunbar again Sunday, with a 10-1 beat down in the semifinals, and took the second prize of $1,000.

Stewart and Dunbar still took home $700 each for reaching the semifinals.

After three straight wins in the A event to qualify for the quarter-finals, Lyburn made it clear that his team belongs in Virden — the site of his first provincials in 1998 — come Feb. 5.

“We started off in our first game with a bad break, we got a bad pick,” Lyburn said. “After that we just steamrolled everybody. Finally, we had a weekend where we put our hard work together.

“This was the turning point of our season. Nice to get our spot in provincials via Brandon, and a chance to come back to Brandon for the Brier.”

The final score in the title game wasn’t indicative of Lyburn’s dominance.

After Irwin successfully blanked the first end, he looked to be in a great spot to jump ahead in the second, counting all four front-end stones. Then Peters blasted the cluster of rocks, removing three. Lyburn delivered a perfect corner freeze to grab a piece of the button, and Irwin’s draw — which just about needed to touch the pin — finished wide.

Down 1-0, Irwin blanked the third, and Lyburn put the pressure on in the fourth. He nailed an angle-raise takeout to count three, with a stone on a piece of the lid and another on the back of the four-foot. Irwin let his draw slide a few feet long, far enough to give up a steal of two to trail 3-0.

Faced with three Lyburn rocks in play, Taylor made a quality double takeout, and Irwin made another with his last to get on the board.

In Lyburn’s first opportunity with the hammer, he took complete control and forced Irwin into another tough situation. Irwin missed a hit and left two Lyburn stones in the house and nothing to stop him from drawing for three.

So he stopped him with a handshake.

“Our final was awful, but the rest of the weekend was good. We played decent most of the time, but our two games against Willie were our worst in quite a while,” Irwin said.

“We had some good moments out here this weekend, and we’ve been getting better as the season’s gone on. We started off pretty slow, but we’re trending in the right direction. Hopefully we can put it together in a month.”

All four recreational divisions also wrapped up on Sunday. In the A Division, Ross Granger defeated Mark Anderson 8-4.

In the B Division, Ryan Thompson edged Jason Orr 7-3, while Gerry Haight won the C Division with a 7-4 win over Brian Freiheit, and Cole Neal defeated Murray Warren 7-3 in the D Division final.

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