Cloverdale’s Tyler Tardi claimed the bronze medal at the Curling Canada’s U18 Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Tardi finished first after the round-robin stage of the tournament with a 7-1 record, but fell 5-1 to Northern Ontario in Saturday morning’s semifinal before upending Saskatchewan 6-4 in the evening’s bronze medal match. He also won a sportsmanship award.
“What a fantastic week,” Tardi said after the win over Saskatchewan. “We are so proud to be bringing home a bronze medal for B.C.”
Tardi skipped Team B.C. at the first-ever U18 nationals, and was joined on the team by third Sterling Middleton of Burnaby, and second Derek Chandler and lead Scott Gray, both of Victoria. Tardi, a member of the Langley Curling Club, skipped Team B.C. to the gold medal at the Junior national championship in Victoria in January.
Both losses by Team B.C. at the five-day competition in Moncton were to Northern Ontario, a team which went on to win the gold medal. Northern Ontario handed the Tardi team a 7-5 loss in a round-robin game Friday morning, but Team B.C. came back to drub Saskatchewan 8-2 to clinch first place.
Paul Tardi, Tyler’s father and coach of Team B.C., said the goal before the playoff was to “try to score early and hold the lead.” But it was Northern Ontario scoring first, and after stealing one in both the third and fourth ends, took a 3-0 lead into the second half of the game. After Team B.C. got one back in the sixth, Northern Ontario put the game out of reach with two in the seventh.
In the bronze-medal game, Tardi twice erased two-point deficits before he stole a pair in the eighth end for the win.
rick.kupchuk@ surreynowleader.com
