Fay Henderson will finally get her chance to lead her team into action at the World Junior B Championship after claiming a second successive victory at the national championships following a hard fought final.
It was a second victory for all four members of the quartet who were put together this season, with Henderson and Holly Wilkie-Milne defending their title, while Robyn Munro and Laura Watt had been part of Amy Bryce’s winning team the previous season. 
However, they were made to battle all the way for their 6-5, last end win by Team Mitchell, the only opponents who had defeated them in the course of the week’s competition.
Dumfries-based Henderson and her teammates, who are on the British Curling programme at performance foundation level, had gained revenge for that loss in the round-robin stages of the competition, when they met in the page play-offs between the top two teams, but they knew they would have a battle on their hands with Greenacres’ Amy Mitchell, Robyn Mitchell, Hannah Farries and Kirsty Gallacher.
“Scottish Junior champions sounds pretty good and this is what we’ve been working towards throughout this season,” said Henderson.
“We got an early lead in the final, got 4-0 up and then the game closed a little when we lost a two, but we just kept going and down the last end we had hammer and we managed to keep it fairly clean and open.
“My first stone I managed to pick theirs out and Amy threw a draw that was a little bit heavy and that was the game because we already had a counter in the rings.
“We’ve had some close games with Team Mitchell this season and they gave us our only loss of the competition in the round-robin to them, so it was good to bounce back with the win in the one-two match to get straight to the final and then another win against them in the final to finish it off.
“It’s the second time we’re all Scottish champions, but for Holly and me we have defended our title, which is more than I could ask for.”
Henderson suffered both extreme disappointment and elation last season when, after they had earned their place at the World Junior B Championships, the event was cancelled due to COVID, only for them to subsequently be called into the main World Championships as late replacements later in the season.
Their skip believes they will be readier for the challenge this time around, however. 
“We’ll obviously be looking forward to going to represent Scotland at the World Junior Bs as well, which will be a great opportunity and hopefully we can put in a good performance there,” said Henderson.
“I think we’ll be ready to step up to that, knowing it’s coming and that we’ve got a deadline to aim for.
“We’ll have good conditions in the National Curling Academy and all the support around us as well.
“It’ll feel less rushed and will give us a good chance to work together as a team, so we just want to continue on from the good performance here this week.”
The men’s event was meanwhile an even bigger triumph for Dumfries as local rivals Team Strawhorn and Team Orrin Carson fought their way through to the final.
It was ultimately won by Carson’s men, all of whom have several years left at junior level when, after beating British Curling performance foundation line-up Team Ross Craik in the morning’s semi-final, they then reversed the outcome of the page play-off match when they scored a three at the final end of their encounter with Jack Strawhorn’s men to claim a 6-3 win in the final.
The outcome of both competitions was enthusiastically welcomed by David Aitken, British Curling’s Performance Foundation Manager, who said after the finals: “Overall the standard was high this year and congratulations to both winning teams. 
“For Team Carson it has been a good season but this represents a significant step up for them winning a national title this weekend.
“For them to achieve this at this stage as a young team given the experience and opportunities this will now give them, it is exciting to see what they can achieve while they are still at juniors.”
Team Craik
Ross Craik
Scott Hyslop
Struan Carson
Jack Carrick
Team Henderson
Fay Henderson
Robyn Munro
Holly Wlkie-Milne
Laura Watt
#curling