Any early struggles that Brady Scharback and his rink from the Nutana Curling Club in Saskatoon are now a thing of the past.
Scharback, who is joined on his rink by third Jacob Hersikorn, second Quinn Hersikorn and lead Brady Kendel, earned a berth in next month’s Saskatchewan men’s provincial curling playdowns with a 6-3 win over Saskatoon’s Tyler Travis in the ‘B’ event final at the Northern men’s provincial qualifier at the Twin Rivers Curling Club.
“This what we set out to accomplish and it feels good to achieve that goal,” Scharback said.
“I thought we play extremely well all weekend. We only we struggled in one game, and that was in the ‘A’ semifinal against Drew Heidt and he’s already qualified. The guys played excellent in every game, and they made things pretty easy for me.”
Thanks to some exceptional takeouts from Scharback and Jacob Hersikorn, the Travis rink found themselves in several tough situations and gave up back-to-back steals in the fifth and sixth ends.
“There were a few times where they were literally two inches light off of getting a point,” Scharback said.
“If they made those shots, it would have been a totally different game.”
While this is the first year the rink has curled on the men’s circut, Scharback and his teammates have played together for many seasons on the junior circuit.
The foursome represented Saskatchewan at the 2013 Canadian Juniors in Fort McMurray, Alta., while Jacob Hersikorn and Kendel won a silver medal at the 2015 event in Corner Brook, N.L.
While Hersikorn and Kendel returned to the junior nationals in Stratford, Ont. last year, Scharback was competing in the men’s ranks as the second on Shaun Meachem’s Saskatoon rink and finished in second place at the provincial playdowns to Steve Laycock.
“We’re playing a lot better than we were at the start of the season,” Scharback said. “No matter if you have curled before, it takes some time for a new team to get on the same page, and we were nowhere near where we wanted to be in our first two bonspiels.”
“To be on a young team and make it to the provincials with a great group of friends is a lot of fun.“
The final two berths in the provincial playdowns, which will be held in Tisdale from Feb. 1 to 5, will be determined at 1 p.m. Sunday in a pair of ‘C’ finals.
Travis will be taking on Saskatoon’s Scott Bitz, while the other matchup will see Lashburn’s Ryan Armstrong take on Wadena’s Scott Comfort.
