Team Roster: Skip Jake Walker (Minden/), Vice Edward Cyr (Haliburton/), Second Geoff Chambers (Innerkip/), Lead James Freeman (Brantford/) and alternate Nathan Ransom (Sioux Lookout/).

The Waterloo men's curling team captured OUA gold this past weekend defeating Carleton in the final by a tight score of 3 – 2.  With the win, the Warriors advance to the CIS / CCA National Championships in mid-March.

Led by an outstanding performance by skip Jake Walker (Minden/), the men entered their final day of competition in the tie-breaker position playing Laurentian this morning for an opportunity to advance to the semifinals.

Waterloo finished round robin play in a four way tie (4 - 2) landing the second place position. Yesterday evening Trent and Laurentian played the first tie-breaker with Laurentian besting Trent to advance to this morning's game against Waterloo.
 
Tie-breaker vs. Laurentian

This was a test of equally talented teams as the Warriors defeated Laurentian by a score of 3 - 1 with 5 blank ends and running Laurentian out of stones, and options, in the 8th end. At the fourth end break, Waterloo trailed Laurentian by a score of 1 - 0 and were able to manufacture a huge 3 in the 5th controlling play and the game through the final 3 ends of play. In this game, Jake Walker (Minden/) curled 91% with excellent support from vice Ed Cyr and second Geoff Chambers (Innerkip/) each at 84% and lead James Freeman (Brantford/) at 81% - high numbers against a very strong opponent.
 
Semifinals vs. Toronto

The same line up against the Varsity Blues but a far different game. This was a more open match with back-and-forth results as the Warriors defeated the Toronto team by a margin of 6 - 5 in an extra end as the Blues stole 1 in the 8th.

Though the team started well, they let the Toronto squad back in to tie after the 5th at a score of 3 - 3. Scoring 2 in the 6th the Warriors held the Toronto team to a single in 7 before Toronto were able to steal a single in the 8th to force the extra end.
 
Some key misses in the 9th left Jake Walker (Minden/) with a very tough bump-back on a Toronto counter in the four foot which was made by a combination of excellent weight control and line calling by vice Ed Cyr. A tight well-earned victory for the Warriors set up the final match for OUA gold or silver against Carleton.
 
Gold medal game vs. Carleton

One of the two games that Waterloo lost in the round robin was to Carleton so the win in the OUA Provincial final was especially rewarding. As with all three games played on Monday, the team line-up remained the same with Jake, Ed, Geoff and James representing Waterloo.

After a force of a single in the 1st end, Waterloo were able to score a steal in the 3rd to go up 2- 0 and force Carleton to a single in the 4th. Forced to a single in 5, Carleton blanked the 6th before drawing for a single in the 7th facing three Waterloo counters.

The 8th end was a nail biter as Carleton semi-froze Waterloo's two stones in the four foot making it difficult to remove the Carleton stone. Exchanges of guards and peels led to a Warrior decision to bump the Carleton freeze giving the Warriors a alter-in-the-end opportunity. Carleton's skip Chris Lewis miss-threw his guard allowing Jake to peel-bump the Ravens shot to lie two prior to the Ravens final stone. This was all set up by a marvelous bump freeze by vice Ed Cyr which left Carleton in a tough situation. Unable to get shot stone, the Ravens ran out of options prior to Waterloo having to throw their final rock.
 
Special appreciation is also extended to Nathan Ramsom, alternate for Waterloo, for his play in the games against Trent and UOIT and his continuing support of the team.
 
The Warriors now move on to CIS / CCA Nationals in mid-March hosted by Brock University with the Laurier Golden Hawks Laure Crocker's team emerging as OUA Gold Medalists on the women's side. Both City of Waterloo teams now move forward representing Ontario with fellow OUA teams from Carleton (men) and Western (women) as competitors. Host berths remain with Brock as Ontario fields three teams in the National eight team (per gender) finals.
 

Tie-Breaker Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	score
Laurentian	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	X	1
Waterloo	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	X	3

 

Semi-final	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8        9	score
Toronto	0	0	0	0	3	0	1	1       0	5
Waterloo	2	0	0	1	0	2	0	0       1	6

 

Final	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	score
Waterloo	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	x	3
Carleton	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	x	2