Myer and Eden to meet in SOSSA boys curling final
Myer skip Victor Pietrangelo is shown above competing Monday in the SOSSA semifinals at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club.
A pair of local rinks tossed shutouts at Monday’s Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association boys curling semifinals at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club.
The A.N, Myer boys rink, skipped by Victor Pietrangelo, recorded a 9-0 victory over Blessed Trinity and Eden, skipped by Levi Martens, blanked Westmount 11-0
The two rinks will meet in the SOSSA final Tuesday at 2 p.m. at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club.
The Pietrangelo rink will be looking to defend its SOSAA title and advance to Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ championships March 25-28 in Durham.
“We didn’t do great at OFSAA last year,” Pietrangelo said. “We went 1-4 but there were some tough teams.”
Myer’s OFSAA pool of 2019 included the eventual OFSAA gold and silver medalists.
Unlike last year’s Myer rink that placed third at the Gore provincials, this year’s squad, made up of vice Nick Simmonds, second James Harvie and lead Davis Gollert, was ousted at the Gore regional level.
“I am pretty confident about our team this year,” the 17-year-old Pietrangelo said. “It’s the same guys as last year, we mesh really well together and you can only get better after having a season like we had last year.”
This year’s team is much different from 2019.
“Last year, I was the only guy who had curled before. It all came together and surprisingly we made it to provincials for Gore and got third.”
The goal for 2020 is to make it back to OFSAA.
“It would be nice to make it to the quarters this year because both times I made it to OFSAA we haven’t had a good enough record to make it to quarter-finals.”
Away for school curling, Pietrangelo has enjoyed some success. He teamed with Myer girls skip Jessica Zheng and a couple of other players to qualify for mixed provincials and he has also qualified for mixed doubles provincials with Zheng.
The Eden rink, which includes Luke Martens, Toby Jeffries, Riley Koop, Alex LeBlanc and Noah Landry, is hoping to take advantage of home-ice advantage
“What helps a lot is knowing this ice,” said Grade 10 skip Levi Martens said. “It really gives us confidence knowing we can make these shots.”
The 15-year-old, who has been curling for eight years, is excited to be in the SOSSA final.
“Obviously we were hoping to get there and we played our game and did well,” Martens said.
The Eden rink practices twice a week and only has two club players on its roster.
Making up the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association (Zone 2) championship rink from Blessed Trinity were skip Stephanie Putnins, vice Duncan McDonald, second Nolan Kapshey, lead Jazmine Smith and alternate Hannah Flus.
