Johnston wins junior curling crown

Thunder Bay curlers went 1-for-3 in the Northern Ontario provincial junior curling championships in North Bay on Sunday.

Skip Cody Johnston is off to Calgary for nationals for the second time in three years, beating cross-town rival Brennan Wark 10-6 in the championship match. Johnston, lead Mike Makela, second Mark Adams and third Mike Baduik took a 3-1 lead after three ends, and stole two in the fourth and one in the fifth to go up 5-1.

But Wark, who curls out of the Port Arthur Curling Club, scored three in the sixth to close the gap to one, but Johnston responded with three of his own in the seventh, reopening a four-point gap that Wark was unable to close.

Johnston’s squad will look to improve on their second-place finish from 2009, which saw them lose the final 7-6 to Prince Edward Island when the Maritime rink scored two with the hammer in the 10th end of the championship match.

The national juniors begin on Jan. 29.

On the women’s side, it just wasn’t Karlee Jones’s day.

The Port Arthur Curling Club skip, who went undefeated in five round-robin games, fell twice to Idylwylde’s Kendra Lilly on the final day and lost her bid to win a trip to nationals.

Forced to beat Jones twice because of her 5-0 status, Lilly stole points in the ninth and 10th ends of the first final, scoring an 8-6 upset that set up a winner-takes all second final.

Jones took an early 2-0 lead in that one, but Lilly tied it in the third, stole a pair in the fourth and another in the fifth to take a commanding 5-1 lead. Jones scored two in the sixth, but after exchanging points in the seventh and eighth ends, Lilly wrapped up the 9-5 triumph scoring three in the ninth, ending the match.