Robertson repeats as senior champion

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This article was published 28/02/2012 (5213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Neepawa’s Kelly Robertson will have a chance to qualify for his second world championship before playing in his first.

The 55-year-old skip guided his club to a second straight provincial senior men’s curling title on Monday afternoon in Beausejour, doubling up on Murray Warren of Deloraine 8-4 in the championship game. Robertson, who will now head to this year’s Canadian championship from March 17-25 in Abbotsford, B.C., won both the provincial and national titles last year to earn a berth in the 2012 world senior curling championship in Denmark from April 14-21.

“It feels great and with all of the good senior teams that there are in the province, to win this twice is unbelievable,” Robertson said via telephone yesterday.

“It’s really unbelievable to go from one side of the country in Nova Scotia last year (for the Canadian championship) to B.C. this year. We didn’t know really what to expect last year as far as Canadians with the talent there and what-not and we knew it would be tough, which it was. And now we kind of know what to expect and I will imagine there will be some of the same teams there.”

Robertson, whose Neepawa-based foursome features third Doug Armour of Souris, second Peter Prokopowich of Dauphin and lead Bob Scales of Winnipeg, went 6-1 in pool play before beating Hamiota’s Brent Strachan 9-7 in Sunday’s Page playoffs after Strachan had gone a perfect 7-0 to win his pool. With Robertson, Warren and Strachan, the final three teams in the running all came from Westman clubs.

“In Manitoba, curling is kind of a hotbed and the western part of the province has some pretty solid teams, with the top five seeds here from western Manitoba … so we are in pretty good competition all the time in Westman,” Robertson said. “With Robbie (Fowler) going to the Brier from Brandon, too, it’s a pretty good year (for local curling).”

In yesterday’s final, Robertson took an early 4-1 lead, but Warren battled back and trailed 5-4 heading into the eighth end when Robertson took one and then stole a pair in the ninth to clinch it.

“We got up 4-1, but Murray came back and they are a tough team to defend against,” Robertson said. “They don’t mind playing with rocks and what-not and actually we got out of an end that was really bad with only a steal of one (for Warren) in the seventh end … so it was game where it was dicey there in the middle.”

Robertson’s team will now prepare to head back to nationals next month for a 10-day competition that will also help them gear up for their first trip to the worlds in April.

“We were kind of wondering how we were going to stay sharp for the worlds, but this will definitely help us out,” Robertson said.

Warren, who went 5-2 in pool play, advanced to Monday’s championship final by brushing by Brent Strachan of Hamiota 8-6 in Monday morning’s semifinal.

On Sunday night, Brandon’s Lois Fowler fell 9-8 to Stonewall’s Laurie Deprez in the final of the provincial senior women’s championship.

» jshewaga@brandonsun.com