Morrison rink wins first RR bonspiel of the season

By Ken Johnston
Editor

Rainy River Curling Club held its first bonspiel of the 2011-12 season with 10 teams participating this past Friday and Saturday.
With declining numbers at the club over the last several years, traditional bonspiel formats, Men’s, Women’s and Mixed have now been abandoned for an Open format. Open means a team can be made up of all men, all women or any combination there of.
The finals were held Saturday evening with the top six teams vying for ‘A, B and C’ event titles.
In the ‘A’ event it was Dale Morrison’s rink vs. Jason Wilson.
It was a close game almost right to the final end. Wilson drew first blood scoring two.
Morrison, who threw perfect draw weight all night, drew to the button the next two ends to tie the game 2-2 after three ends.
Wilson then countered, picking up one in the fourth and stealing one in the fifth to lead 4-2.
But it was far from over. Morrison made a perfect takeout to score three and regain the lead 5-4 in the sixth.
Wilson then missed a double takeout at the end of the seventh and left Morrison counting one more.
Morrison then controlled the eighth, clearing Wilson’s rocks almost as quickly as they made the house. He scored two more to win the title 8-4.
In the ‘B’ event it was another close match that could have gone either way with Danny Armstrong’s rink playing Brian Russell’s team.
Russell scored first with Armstrong having a difficult take out to make but missed, leaving Russell two.
Armstrong then scored one in each of the next two ends. In the third Russell had a chance to take Armstrong’s out and lie three but was inside the broom and missed.
In the fourth Russell again had a chance to draw for one, but was short, leaving Armstrong with two and ahead 4-2.
In the fifth Russell made a nice raise to count two and tie the game 4-4.
Armstrong scored one in both the sixth and seventh ends to lead 6-4.
Down by two, with the hammer, Russell had a chance to take out Armstrong’s lone rock, score three and win the event. But he was light and only counted one to give the title to Armstrong with a 6-5 score.
In the ‘C’ event Cheryl Matthew’s rink made quick work of Debbie Armstrong’s. They each scored one in the first and two ends. Then it was all Matthew’s, scoring three in the third, one in the fourth, two in the fifth and one in the sixth to lead 8-1. Armstrong then resigned.