World Junior Champion skip James Craik led his men to a battling fightback over one of the top teams in the world game to claim a place in the Scottish Championship final at Dumfries tomorrow against reigning European champions Team Mouat.
In a hard-fought semi-final, Craik, Mark Watt, Angus Bryce and Blair Haswell looked to be in real trouble against Team Whyte when two missed attempts at run backs by their skip saw them fall 3-0 behind Team Whyte after just two ends. 
Forced to attack, however, Craik pulled off a spectacular angled run back to transform the head at the third end and claim a two which changed the momentum of the match and they were back to all square by the midway break.
A two for Team Whyte at the sixth end once again looked to have put them in charge and it still looked that way when they forced Craik to take just one at the eighth end after a blanked seventh.
The youngsters kept applying the pressure, though and after stealing at the ninth end, they left Ross Whyte with a challenge with his final delivery, having to remove a shot stone when he could only see around a third of it and his attempt caught a guard, leaving them 7-6 winners.
“It was looking rather bleak for us at the start when we were 3-0 down and even in the third end it wasn’t looking great, but I managed make a good one with my last to give us a fighting chance and the boys really rallied,” said Craik.
“We were down in that game for the whole duration, but there wasn’t an ounce of fight lost and we’re really, really proud of ourselves.
“We know we are a very resilient team. We don’t struggle being down in the game. We like to get loads of stones in play, so just need to wait for a miss and make sure we capitalise and we’ve come back from worse, so long as there are stones to be played we’re still fighting.”
The 21-year-old, who also led his team to victory at the recent Winter University Games, admitted that his team had exceeded their own expectations by reaching the final in their first full year at senior level.
“We came here just hoping to make play-offs, but once we got here we realised that everyone was expecting us to make the play-offs,” said Craik.
“We were really glad to achieve that yesterday, but to come out here and go one better than anyone expected is the cherry on top, but we’ve taken down one of them, so we don’t see why we can’t take down two of the Scotland giants. 
“We’re really excited for the game tomorrow. We know it will be a battle and we’re going to give it everything we can.
“We are a very process driven team. We just do the same thing over and over again and as long as every box is ticked our performance is usually consistent.
“So, we’ll make sure everything’s done exactly the same and it doesn’t matter the name on the board, it’s just the stones on the ice.”
Mouat’s men, who were ranked number one in the world this time last year, are aiming to win the title for a fourth successive time, having missed last year’s competition because they were on Olympic duty and they have relished being back at the national championships, but have their sights set on a return to the World Championships where they won a silver medal on their last appearance two years ago.
“It’s great being back at the Scottish,” said Mouat.
“It’s probably one of the competitions you look forward to most in the season. We’ve had a lot of fun playing them in the past, even those before we started to win.
“You learn a lot from these championships and it’s great to see the development of the event.
“We’re now playing in an arena in front of family and friends and fans and we’re over the moon to be back, so hopefully we can get that win tomorrow and a fourth championship.
“It would mean a lot. We’d love to go back to a World Championship and we think that would definitely secure our spot. It’s been a long time waiting for that.”
The women’s final will see reigning champions and European Championship bronze medallists Team Morrison face Team Young in a re-match of the page play-off which saw them progress to the final.
Team Young were consequently forced to fight out a semi-final with Team Blair and the determination of both to give nothing away was evident in the first half of the match which saw them tied at 0-0 heading into the midway break. 
It was Lucy Blair’s quartet that finally broke the deadlock at the sixth end, but that only seemed to galvanise their opponents and after levelling at the next, Lesley Young, Jennifer Marshall, Eilidh Yeats and Rachael Dakers stole two at the eighth and another at the ninth before running their opponents out of stones at the 10th end.
For Yeats, who was a professional curler until the end of last season, this represents a remarkable turn of events since she only recently accepted a job with British Curling as a data analyst.
She and Marshall now find themselves up against opponents led by their former teammate Rebecca Morrison, with whom they made their only previous appearance in the final three years ago.
“It’s great to get back in a final,” said Yeats.
“I probably wasn’t expecting it this week. We didn’t have too much pressure on us going in, but you never know and it’s great to get this opportunity to play in the final again.
“The team we’ve just played are ex-teammates as well and that’s one of the great things about curling… you’ve got to be friends and rivals, so we’ll look forward to playing Rebecca’s team tomorrow and they are a great team.
“We had a good game against them this morning and took them to 10 ends. It’s only about our 10th game together, but we’re really enjoying it out there.”
Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson have, like Team Mouat, gone through the event unbeaten so far and are looking to build on that form.
“I’m so pleased with how the team has been playing throughout the round-robin. We’ve had some great stats and great numbers on the board,” said their skip.
We couldn’t have asked for much more. It’s probably been one of our highest quality weeks of play so far, so we’re just delighted with that.
“We now just need to focus on ourselves going into the final. If we play like we’ve been going we should do well tomorrow.”
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Images: Jack Hodgetts, PPA/Graeme Hart.
