There is a new provincial curling champion for Manitoba.
The Morris Curling Club’s Jason Gunnlaugson, Alex Forrest, Adam Casey and Connor Njegovan defeated top-seeded Mike McEwen’s rink 7-4 to win the 96th Manitoba Men’s Curling Championship — the fifth Viterra Championship.
Team Gunnlaugson had their biggest scare when they came out to a 4-0 lead but gave up three to McEwen in the fifth end.
“We knew we were going to give up three at some point, so we just keep calm when that happened and then we just really stuck with it from there and executed,” Gunnlaugson says.
McEwen would only add one more point over the course of the game, missing a draw for two that would have tied the game. Gunnlaugson scored two points in the ninth end and ran Team McEwen out of rocks in the 10th.
Team Gunnlaugson will represent Manitoba at the Brier, which starts on Friday, Feb. 28.
The McEwen foursome will also be in Kingston, Ont., for the Friday night wild-card game against Ontario’s Glenn Howard.