Scotland’s Team Craik cruised into the men’s final at the World Junior Curling Championship with a semi-final victory over Norway that was more convincing than the 7-5 scoreline.
Starting with the hammer by virtue of having topped the round-robin standings, James Craik, Angus Bryce, Scott Hyslop and Niall Ryder played a near text book opening end to set up their two and after a blanked second forced their opponents at the next.
From that point they fully took charge, scoring another two at the fourth end, then claiming steals either side of the midway break to move into a 6-1 lead that meant they could focus on scoreboard management in the closing stages. 
“That was more of the same,” said Craik. “We really came out strong against Norway, dominated the first half completely and we were actually a bit unfortunate not to run away with it a bit more at the start.
“Things got a little bit more dicey after that. They started taking a lot of risks and some of it was paying off for them, which let them get back into it.
“However, we knew that if we just kept on scoring when we had hammer and making sure we didn’t lose more than two, that I would have an open hit most likely with my last, which is what happened.”
While Craik, Bryce and Ryder have all played in previous World Junior Championship semi-finals, a place in the final represents a career highlight for all four of them, as well as alternate Jack Carrick and having missed out in both 2019 and 2020, their skip is revelling in this very different semi-final experience.
“We’re already guaranteed an upgrade of a medal for myself, Angus and Niall which is awesome and for Scott and Jack’s it’s a first one,” said a delighted Craik.
“Knowing we have a medal kind of takes away a bit of pressure, because the bronze medal game is not a fun place to be, as I’ve found out before.
“So we’re mainly feeling relieved just now as well as excited just to go out and enjoy the final, hopefully make the most of it and come home with that gold.”
Their opponents in the final will be Germany, whose only defeat of the competition so far came at the hands of the Scots, Benny Kapp’s men having earned their place in the final by defeating Canada 8-5.
Their familiarity with one another from the European junior circuit means Craik expects it to be friendly final, but it will also be fiercely competitive and Craik is determined to finish what has been a golden season for Scottish and British curling with yet another title win. 
“We learned a lot from our round-robin game against Germany and we’ve played them quite a few times this season and they’re really close friends of ours, so we know them inside out,” he explained.
“We have a strategy that we want to use again, towards how we want to play them in the final, however we’ve got a couple of tricks up our sleeve just to try and make sure we’re not readable or predictable.
“This is my last year in juniors, so to take away that title and the gold medal would be phenomenal.
“There’s very few people who can say they have a world title and I’ve been close the past two Worlds, but this tournament has felt special and I really want us to put everything into the final and come away with that gold for Scotland.”
Live games will be available to watch through The Curling Channel in partnership with Recast.
Scotland – Team Craik
James Craik
Angus Bryce
Scott Hyslop
Niall Ryder
Jack Carrick
Scotland – Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Katie McMillan
Lisa Davie
Holly Wilkie-Milne
Robyn Mitchell
Sunday 15 May (all times BST)
Scotland – Korea (men) 8-5
Scotland – Canada (women) 9-7
Scotland – USA (men) 9-1
Monday 16 May
Scotland – USA (women) 8-9
Scotland – New Zealand (men) 10-5
Scotland – Switzerland (women) 3-8
Tuesday 17 May
Scotland – Germany (men) 6-4
Scotland – Japan (women) 4-7
Scotland – Italy (men) 6-4
Wednesday 18 May
Scotland – Norway (women) 7-9
Scotland – Canada (men) 6-7 (EE)
Scotland – Latvia (women) 7-5
Thursday 19 May
Scotland – Norway (men) 9-2
Scotland – Korea (women) 8-9 (EE)
Scotland – Sweden (men) 11-4
Friday 20 May
Scotland – Sweden (women) 4-11
Scotland – Switzerland (men) 8-5
Scotland – Denmark (women) 8-4
Saturday 21 May
Men’s Semi Finals
Scotland – Norway 7-5
Germany – Canada 8-5
Women’s Semi Final – 6.00pm
Sunday 22 May
Men’s Finals - 8.00am (Broadcast game)
Scotland v Germany
Women’s Finals - 1.00pm
Images: WCF/Cheyenne Boone
#curling #WJCC2022
