Busy weekend for Currie and Balerno Curlers

Gavin Barr just misses out in Scottish Junior Regionals

Gavin was playing in Perth in the Scottish Junior Regional playdowns with David Baird, James Baird and Callum MacLean in an all-Murrayfield team.  They had a great first win against one of the pre-tournament favourites, Ross Whyte from Dumfries.  They followed that up on the Friday night with an agonisingly close loss to Gregor Cannon from Stranraer.  Next up was Fraser Keil from Geenacres; this was a tight game all the way through to the ninth end when a big 3 secured the win for the Greenacres skip.

Their biggest win came on Saturday night against another Greenacres skip, George McConnell and that set them up nicely - they were well in the hunt on two wins and two losses, though they still had the reigning Scottish junior champions to face on Sunday morning.  That game didn't go according to plan, but they were still in the hunt of a Scottish finals place if they managed to win their tie-break game against Frazer Keil.  Nip and tuck!  Keil raced out to an early 3-shot lead but a steal of three for the Murrayfield team in the fifth end saw them take a 4-3 lead in the game.

Sadly, that was it.  Keil scored a one, then agonisingly for the Murrayfield lads, stole another one in the eighth and final end of the tie-break game to move to 5-4 and the win. 

Great experience for the four boys though and well done to them for getting so close.  Next year beckons!

Mixed Results at the Double Rink in Stranraer

John Steven, Andrew Galloway, Shona Watt and Raymond Preston had two impressive wins in their round-robin games versus Stranraer (skip was Jim Cannon, the former world junior gold medallist) and Kilsyth.  Sadly for them, the other foursome, skip Brian Fleming, third Andrew Barr, second, Robin Copland and lead Lois Copland didn't quite get it together to the manor born.  They lost a tight game against the Stranraer team, but really struggled against the Kilsyth team skipped by old adversary John Dunn.

The event was eventually won by the Musketeers, who beat Reform CC in the final.