Manitoba curling team finds something special in the Sault

Sault Ste. Marie has been pretty kind to Matt Dunstone and his Manitoba-based curling team.

In addition to the fact that his lead, Ryan Harnden, is a Sault product, the Dunstone rink has had a lot of success in the City in the past two years.

It was a year ago that Dunstone’s team scrambled to make a flight out of the Sault after winning the inaugural Soo Curlers Fall Classic.

This year, Dunstone is able to savour his tournament title a little bit more.

On Sunday evening, Team Dunstone defeated Marco Hoesli’s Switzerland-based team in an extra end to win the newly named Henderson Metal Fall Classic.

“This field was a lot more difficult than last year,” Dunstone said shortly after picking up the victory.

As proud as he was of both tournament titles in the Sault, Dunstone called this year’s win “a little bit extra special.”

“It wasn’t always pretty, but we found a way to do it,” Dunstone added. “We got breaks when we needed them and made shots when we had to.”

In Sunday’s 7-5 victory in the final, Dunstone said there was a lot to like from his team, which included third B.J. Neufeld, and second Colton Lott in addition to Harnden.

“We did a lot of really good things with hammer today,” Dunstone said. “We were set up for a huge end in the first end, but it didn’t happen. We gave up a bit of a cheap deuce in the second end. We had the third of a rock double to probably win this game earlier than nine ends in the third end and just missed it. At that moment, it can be very frustrating. It’s a four-point swing on that shot, but we’re just heads down, gritty. Get a force in four and get a nice deuce back in five and from there, it felt like we had control of the game. A great team shot on the hit-and-roll in seven and that’s probably the game-changer in all of this.”

Dunstone advanced to the final thanks to a semifinal win over Italy’s Joel Retornaz, who Dunstone beat in last year’s final.

Hoesli advanced to the final thanks to a semfinal win over Mike McEwen of Saskatchewan.

In quarterfinal play on Sunday morning, Dunstone beat northern Ontario-based John Epping while Hoesli beat Manitoba-based Reid Carruthers.

The other quarterfinal games saw McEwen beat Newfoundland and Labrador’s Brad Gushue while Retornaz beat Ontario’s Mark Kean.