THUNDER BAY – Dylan Johnston joked his win over Chris Silver was a bit of a Christmas miracle.
His foursome has struggled somewhat this year in Tbaytel Major League of Curling play, and even after picking up their sixth win of the season on Wednesday night, the team is still on the outside looking in when it comes to the championship bracket.
The good news is, with three weeks to go, there’s plenty of time to right the ship, Team Johnson sitting just two points back of Robyn Despins and Gary Weiss, the two squads battling for the eighth and final playoff spot with 19 points.
Johnston, who skipped teams to Major League of Curling titles in 2020 and 2022, said the foursome got off to a slow start this season, but now, with nothing to lose, have started to figure things out.
“It’s been a struggle all year,” he said. “The last few games we’ve been having fun, let loose, and it seems to be working.”
In Wednesday’s 8-1 win, Johnston and his teammates, that normally include Brennan Wark, Chris Briand and Travis Belchior, never trailed.
They scored one in the first, stole two more in the third and finished strong with a deuce in the fifth to go up 5-1. They closed it out with a steal of three in the sixth, the two sides shaking hands.
“We made almost every shot,” Johnston said. “Like I said, we’re having fun, staying loose and there’s no pressure on us.
“We’re looking to make the top eight and we feel that’s very reachable. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
The Johnston rink isn’t alone in trying to make a playoff push.
Zach Warkentin’s squad is also on the outside looking in, but took a strong step toward securing a playoff berth with a 6-5 win over Ben Mikkelsen, a rare six-ender in the fourth proving to be all the scoring they’d need.
It was third Tyler Stewart who led the team to the victory, filling in for the absent Warkentin on a night when several teams made use of spares with players out of town for the holidays or spiels in other locales.
“It was nice to pop that one, for sure,” Stewart said. “It was a tricky ice surface tonight, so I think we were just kind of taking what we could get. The six was just a few misses here and there and it ended up developing that we had few more rocks in play.”
The win was key for Team Warkentin (4-1-6-1), who are currently in 12th place, four points out of a playoff spot, with three draws remaining in the regular season.
They still have their work cut out of them, Stewart said.
“I think we’ve got to rattle off the next few to have a shot to make the playoffs. It was nice to start with one and get off the schneid. I think we had four losses in a row, so it was nice to get one.”
Mikkelsen didn’t roll over, scoring two in the fifth and stealing one more in the sixth to give himself a chance coming home. But without hammer in the eighth and down 6-3, Mikkelsen could only manage a steal of two and fell one short.
It was a big night for Krista McCarville’s team, who took over top spot with a 7-3 win over Jodi Judd, leapfrogging Trevor Bonot’s rink, who fell 4-3 to Gary Weiss, who scored one with hammer in the eighth to pick up with the win and keep his playoff chances alive.
McCarville, who was absent, needs one point to clinch one of the eight playoff spots, and leads all teams with 28 points, two more than Bonot and three more than Al Hackner and Brian Adams Jr.
In other action, Adams Jr. edged Despins 5-3, Bryan Burgess downed Andrew Sinclair 9-1, Ron Rosengren needed just four ends to beat Jackson Dubinsky 9-2 and Team Hackner made easy work of Denis Malette, winning 8-1.
