A precocious Okotoks skip proved age isn’t everything on the sheets at the Bantam Southerns.
Twelve-year-old skip Quinn Heffron finished fourth at the Southern Alberta Curling Association Bantam Southerns on March 17 at the Cochrane Curling Club, despite being the youngest to throw last rock at the 16-team tournament.
“It’s not that big of an advantage for everyone else,” said Heffron, on being the youngest skip by two years. “It’s kind of advantage for me because they’re older and I learn what they can do and then they might be gone next year so I can use their strategies on other people.”
Heffron proved to be a quick study on the sheets in Cochrane.
The Okotoks Junior Curling Academy team, featuring Heffron, third Blake Johnson, second Miki Becker and lead Jeremy LaBossiere, had only curled as a foursome for six weeks in preparation for the bonspiel.
If there were any holes in team chemistry, they didn’t show on the ice.
Team Heffron stormed out of the gate with a 3-0 record to finish atop Pool A and advance to the semifinal.
The Okotoks team started the tournament with a come from behind 7-6 win over Team Duhn out of Airdrie, a contest that came down to Heffron’s last shot in the eighth end with the hammer.
“It was a freeze in the back eight and I had to make the shot in order to win and I knew I could be a little heavy because I could freeze on to the back ones,” Heffron said. “The start of the end they had a whole bunch of rocks in play. Me and my third had to take control with the last couple rocks.”
In their second contest, the Okotoks curlers atoned for a loss to Red Deer’s Eisenhawer rink at districts by coming away with a 6-2 win in the second draw.
“We were all a little nervous going into the game, but we knew anybody can be beat on any given day,” Heffron said. “We just went in there fighting.”
The same approach in the third draw saw Team Heffron get past Team Barnouw 8-3 on the strength of four points in the final three ends.
Following a random draw to decide the matchups for the semifinals, Heffron was pooled versus a seasoned Team Dang out of the Calgary Winter Club.
The Calgary foursome proved too much to handle for the young foothills curlers winning the semifinal 8-1 in five ends en route to the silver medal.
“I wasn’t scared or anything, but you knew you were going up against the better team,” Heffron said. “We could have stayed in the game, but none of us were making any shots.”
The loss dropped Heffron into a bronze medal showdown with the North Hill Curling Club’s Team Smith.
After building a 4-0 lead through the first four ends, Team Heffron gave up seven in the fifth end and couldn’t recover, losing the third-place match by a 10-4 score.
“The first four ends we were going in there strong,” Heffron said. “That (fifth) end we weren’t on our game. I don’t know what happened.”
The articulate Heffron, a Grade 7 student at John Paul II Collegiate, was able to take solace in earning an impressive showing at the first big bonspiel of his burgeoning curling career.
“That was my first time and the Eisenhawers and others were all 14,” Heffron said. “Now we’re the fourth best Bantam team in all of Alberta so I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.”
Team Heffron wasn’t flying the Okotoks Junior Curling Academy flag on its own in picturesque Cochrane.
Okotoks’ Braydon Nakamura skipped a team, featuring brother Parker Nakamura, Cailen Knopp and Chase Anderson.
The Okotoks rink finished in third place in Pool D with a record of 2-1, including an 8-2 loss to Dang, an 8-1 romp over Team Vincent out of Red Deer and closed out pool play by edging Cochrane’s Team Hunter by a 7-6 margin.
Despite its strong showing, Team Nakamura’s 2-1 mark was not enough to get out of a stacked Pool D and into the playoff round.
For more information on the Okotoks Junior Curling Academy go to www.ojca.webs.com.
