McEwen outlasts Wiebe in Viterra Championship semifinal

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This article was published 13/02/2022 (1578 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK – Mike McEwen’s road to his eighth straight Viterra Championship title game has been anything but easy.

His latest battle in what has been a wild week at the Selkirk Curling Club took place this morning as he earned a 10-9 triumph over Ryan Wiebe in a back-and-forth semifinal.

“That was a wild game,” McEwen laughed shortly after making a draw to the four-foot to earn a date with Colton Lott at 2:30 p.m. for the chance to represent Manitoba at the Tim Hortons Brier next month in Lethbridge, Alta.

“That’s basically the theme for us this week. We’ve dealt with a lot of resiliency, whether it was playing with three guys on Friday (with lead Colin Hodgson sitting out with a nagging leg injury) to stealing a game or two. There’s no give-up on this team and we’re finding a way to survive. We’re going to need that this afternoon against Colton, especially since I think it’s going be another wild and entertaining one.”

The McEwen rink, which curls out of the West St. Paul Curling Club and also includes Reid Carruthers at third and Carberry’s Derek Samagalski at second, gave up a steal of two in the first end but bounced back by putting five points on the scoreboard in the second frame.

“We were really fortunate to even have that opportunity for five,” McEwen said.

“It looked like we had a good chance for three points, and even that would have been pretty tough, but unfortunately Ryan had a little miscue there on his last shot (when he was heavy on a freeze attempt). Had he made that, there’s no chance we could have gotten five.”

Wiebe’s Fort Rouge squad, which features Ty Dilello, Sean Flatt, Adam Flatt and Hayden Forrester, quickly responded however as they scored three points in the third end to tie the game back up at five before trading blows with McEwen the rest of the way.

“We were definitely bummed after giving up five but we knew there was a lot of game left to come back and battle in every end,” Wiebe said.

“We never got down on each other. We were making shots all week and playing super good. We kept up the pressure on them and we made Mike throw his last shot in the final end. That’s all we could have hoped for going into today.”

While he was disappointed about the loss, it was another impressive week for the 21-year-old Wiebe, who was a win away from making the Page playoffs in his Viterra debut two years ago in Winnipeg.

“Our goal was to make it to the final four this time around and we trained super hard so that we were ready to contend,” Wiebe said. “There’s a couple of shots I want back from today but there’s so many great things that we can take away from this week. I’m super happy with everything went.”

“There’s a lot of talent on that team and it’s nice to see that kind of potential in Manitoba curling,” McEwen added. “We’ve played those guys in a number of different situations over the last few years and they are all really progressing nicely.”

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