The Espanola Spartan Boys Curling Team wrote their own Cinderella underdog story en route to claiming the title as the best High School Boys Curling team in Northern Ontario.
Dave Gallant says after finishing in third place where only the top 2 teams advance to NOSSA, the boys were granted an entry when one of the top 2 teams couldn’t go. On Day 1 at NOSSA, the boys went 0 wins and 2 losses, losing game 2 11-3 (but in reality, it was more than that as College Notre Dame, their opponents didn’t post the final five points of the 7th end).
However, there was still hope to advance (oddly enough). The 8 boys teams are in 2 pools of 4 with the top 2 teams advancing to the semi-finals. In the Spartans pool, the boys knew that if they won their 3rd game it could be that one team would go 3 wins and 0 losses and the other 3 teams would go 1 win and 2 losses and the 2nd advancer would get through on the tiebreaker. Well the boys beat Algonquin 9 – 0 in their 3rd game, College Notre Dame won their game and the boys advanced on the draw to the button tiebreaker to the semi-finals. In that game, they beat Superior Heights 8 – 6 with some 8th end final shot heroics. That pitted them against College Notre Dame one more time. Curling with some newfound confidence the Spartan curlers pulled off a historic win 9 – 2, shaking hands in the 7th end to claim the banner! Congrats to curlers Ethan Lamothe, Ryan Forcier, Thomas Morrow, Craig Lepine and Austin Leclair!