Lott advances to Viterra Championship final

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This article was published 12/02/2022 (1585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK – Colton Lott is one win away from representing Manitoba at next month’s Tim Hortons Brier in Lethbridge, Alta.

The 26-year-old skip and his rink from the Winnipeg Beach Curling Club, which features Kyle Doering, Tanner Lott and Emerson Klimpke, advanced to Sunday’s Viterra Championship final at the Selkirk Curling Club with a dramatic 8-7 win over Mike McEwen in Saturday night’s 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game.

“To have ourselves in a position to win the province is really exciting, but it’s not over yet,” Lott said.

“All out focus now is on the next game, like it has been all week for us. I can’t stress it enough.”

Sunday’s contest, which gets underway at 2:30 p.m., marks the third time that Lott has played in the final.

He appeared there in 2019 with William Lyburn and was in the contest back in 2016 with Doering as members of Matt Dunstone’s rink.

However, this marks the first time he’s skipped a rink to the Manitoba men’s provincial title game.

Lott moved up into the role following the Olympic pre-trials in October when Pat Simmons stepped back and returned to his role as a high-performance coach in Saskatchewan.

“This is really only my third event as a skip all year,” said Lott, who led the side at the Mother Club Fall Curling Classic in Winnipeg and the DEKALB Superspiel in Morris.

“I’ve definitely gotten better at the position each time out and I feel like I’ve grown quite a bit this year. Playing with Pat helped me a ton. He’s not only a wonderful guy, but I was able to learn so much about the game just by being in the house alongside him.”

Down 7-6 after eight ends, Lott elected to blank the ninth frame in order to keep the hammer coming home.

His squad had McEwen during most of the tenth, especially after his brother Tanner made a great angle slash on his final shot to sit three.

Facing four on his last without hammer, McEwen tried to bump two of Lott’s shot stones out of the four-foot to try and limit him to one, but he was unable to do so.

Although he felt that both sides had a few shots go astray due to picks, the three-time provincial champion was pleased with how his team played on Saturday night, especially after sneaking their way into the 1 vs. 2 Page playoff contest.

“We definitely got away with one that we shouldn’t have won on Friday night against (Corey) Chambers and we were a little fortunate this morning when we came back to steal one from (Braden) Calvert,” McEwen said.

“I think we played well enough tonight to win against Colton and this was probably one of our better games this week. Hopefully, we can bring a similar performance again tomorrow morning. We’ll have to be this good or better in order to move on.”

Awaiting McEwen’s West St. Paul squad in Sunday’s semifinal, which starts at 9 a.m., is 21-year-old Ryan Wiebe.

His rink from the Fort Rouge continued their impressive run with a 7-4 triumph over Corey Chambers’ Fort Garry quartet in the 3 vs. 4 Page playoff game.

“I don’t think this has even sunk in yet,” Wiebe said. “This is crazy. We’ve circled this on our calendars and it’s amazing to have made it this far, especially with how young are we are.”

“I practice quite a bit out at the Fort Rouge and they are right there beside me quite often,” McEwen added. “I can see that they really love what they are doing and I can only imagine how excited they are right now.”

While Chambers’ was proud of his team’s performance, he admitted that it was tough to account for the positives after the loss, especially after his rink fell behind 5-0 after three ends.

“We got caught a couple of times early on and I tried to make a tough shot in the third end (when Wiebe stole two points) instead of trying to keep things simple,” Chambers said.

“It’s tough when you’ve played so well to get to this point and we weren’t as sharp as we had been, but give all the credit to Team Wiebe. They really didn’t give us much of an opportunity and they are a real threat to win this.”

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