by Eric Welsh
Black Press
The closest first-draw boys curling match of Friday morning had Brayden Carpenter's Fraser River-Delta foursome taking on Zane Bartlett's Kootenay crew.
Down 3-1 through three ends, Carpenter's rink rallied for two in the fourth and two in the fifth, escaping with a 6-3 win in their BC Winter Games opener.
“Nerves and getting used to the ice,” the Richmond native said about reasons for a sluggish start. “It throws off your strategy a little bit. We're a hitting team, so it doesn't matter as much for us. But when we draw, if the rock doesn't curl as much, it causes problems.”
The turning point came in the fifth, with Carpenter's team sitting one rock on the T-line, while Bartlett's team had one in the back four.
“We had a raise to sit two and we did that,” he said. “It sat right on the button, and they had nothing. But it was nervous right to the end, especially when he made a triple takeout in the last end. It was a really good game.”
Carpenter's rink will look to speak up when they face Jay Ueda's Vancouver-Squamish rink in the second draw.
“It's really noisy in there,” he said. “It's really loud, and so we need to be louder.”