Chestermere Curler Cole Lewis, 18, and his team had a disappointing showing at the 2018/19 Alberta Junior Men’s Provincial Championship Jan. 2-6 in Okotoks.
“It was a rough week,” said Lewis who played second on Team Manson at the championships.
Coming off of a winning record at their first showing at the Junior Provincials last year, the team struggled with a disappointing tournament this year ending the championship without a win.
“Overall it went pretty good,” said Lewis, “we all played decent it was just the key crucial shots that were missed that resulted in us giving up a big end.”
Once the team fell behind, they were never able to make up the points.
“We had to struggle to catch up, and unfortunately, all the time we couldn’t quite manage to do that,” he said.
Three of the four members of Team Manson competed together last year.
Lewis was joined again by Lead Mathias Babin, and Third Michael Dumont. They were joined with a new skip, Andrew Manson.
Despite the difficult tournament, Lewis said that he really enjoyed competing at the Provincial Championships this year.
“It’s such a wicked event.
“It was awesome it’s never any less exciting that’s for sure,” he said, “and it’s just a really fun time.”
All of the teams competing in Okotoks new each other and Lewis said most of them are friends.
“Its competition but good fun as well,” said Lewis.
And while the teams record doesn’t show it, Lewis said that they played well this year, blaming poor preparation rather than lack of skill for the losses.
“I think that just really strong preparation, I think we lacked that this year, and I do believe that our record is a result of that” he said.
“Technically sound and mentally sound all four of us are very good players but if you’re not prepared going into an event like that it’s really hard,” said Lewis.
On a personal level, Lewis felt that he has improved as a player since last year’s provincials.
“My mental game and my technical game have gotten quite a bit better,” he said.
“Overall, this weekend, the front-end Mat and myself, we both played pretty darn good.”
Go to www.theanchor.ca to see video coverage from the championships.
