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Lucky 13 for North Halton rink EAMONN MAHER Staff Writer A men's team from Georgetown strung together a remarkable 13game win streak en route to earning the first-ever Ontario Curling Association championship banner that will hang in their home North Halton Golf & Country Club's curling section. The rink, skipped by Steve Cartwright, with Jamie Waller as second, Grant Gunn at lead and Alex Foster the third, swept through the zone, regional and provincial draws and didn't lose through the entire playdowns until the final game of the OCA Tim Hortons Colts round-robin finals in Elmira, after the team had already clinched the title. The Colts' division is an open competition involving hundreds of teams from across the province entering at the initial qualifying stage. But the trek to the provincials wasn't as easy as it would appear for the local foursome. After posting a 40 record at the zone event in Milton, Cartwright wasn't able to play at the regional tourney in Peterborough because he had booked a trip to the Bahamas months in advance. So longtime North Halton member Steve Leachman was recruited as a substitute skip and the team won all three matches at the regionals, although a dramatic last-end double takeout by Foster was required to advance. "When we realized that (Cartwright) wouldn't be playing, we knew that it would make it more difficult but we'd just have to pull up our socks if we wanted to win it," said Waller. "We didn't take on a Truscott earns gold and silver for Blue Fins at Ontario championships At the recent four-day Ontario Junior Provincial Short Course Championships held at the Etobicoke Olympium, seven Halton Hills Blue Fins swimmers competed against more than 500 swimmers from 60 Ontario swim clubs. Three-time Canadian age group national champion Tasha Truscott added to her medal collection by picking up both a gold and a silver at the provincial meet. Three other Blue Fins, Sophia Cieplucha, Trevor Burwell and Marc Laforet, all picked up top-10 results in their events. All Halton Hills swimmers competed beyond their qualifying times, with the Blue Fins posting an almost 100 per cent "personal best" rate. Final results were: Loren O'Brien-Egesborg (Girls 11)-- 17th 100m butterfly; 30th 200m butterfly Sophia Cieplucha (Girls 12)-- 8th 50m freestyle; 11th 400m freestyle; 13th 800m freestyle Trevor Burwell (Boys 12)-- 7th 200m freestyle; 7th 400m freestyle; 8th 800m freestyle; TASHA TRUSCOTT 12th 50m freestyle; Tasha Truscott (Girls 13)-- Gold 100m butterfly; silver 50m freestyle; 4th 100m freestyle; 10th 100m backstroke Karl Massey (Boys 13)-- 15th 100m backstroke Marc Laforet (Boys 14)-- 5th 50m freestyle; 7th 100m freestyle; 7th 100m butterfly; 8th 200m butterfly; 11th 200m freestyle; Keegan Dahl (Boys 14)-- 11th 200m butterfly; 15th 100m butterfly; 16th 50m freestyle; 24th 100m freestyle. North Halton's Steve Cartwright rink pulled off a first for the club by winning the recent Ontario Curling Association Tim Hortons Colts' title. Team members (from left) are: Lead Grant Gunn, second Jamie Waller, third Alex Foster, skip Steve Cartwright. Photo by Eamonn Maher defeatist attitude or anything. It just meant that we were going to have to work a little harder to get there and (Leachman) fit in really well." At the provincials in Elmira, the North Halton team had the youngest and "most-experienced" curlers in its lineup with the 22-year-old Foster and 50-year-old Gunn. Having played with and against each other in the North Halton in-house leagues for years, the team members reeled off six straight victories to clinch the OCA championship. "There's a real cross-section in ages on the team but we just had the right people getting together and playing really well," Waller added. "With curling, it's the team chemistry that makes it successful more than anything. It doesn't matter how old you are." OCA rules state that once an individual or team wins a Colts' championship, they are not eligible to enter the competition again, although there will likely be some invitations for the team to attend various cashpiel qualifiers next year involving world-class rinks skipped by the likes of Glenn Howard and Wayne Middaugh. A yet-to-be-scheduled reception will take place at the North Halton club to officially present the OCA banner to the team. (Eamonn Maher can be reached at emaher@independentfreepress.com) Krysa handed first `loss' in lightweight bout Controversy surrounded the outcome of the Extreme Cage Combat 5 Canadian lightweight championship bout involving Georgetown's Shaun Krysa in Halifax, N.S. on Saturday night in front of about 4,500 spectators. The 26-year-old Krysa was tagged with his first loss in five professional Mixed Martial Arts fights in the octagonal ring to hometown product Jason MacKay, but the Georgetownbased Main Event Fighter team disputed the legality of a kick to the chin that stopped the bout in the second round. Officials ruled that the blow was an accidental foul and the result would be determined by the judges' scoring, which had MacKay ahead 19-18 on all three cards. MacKay offered Krysa a rematch afterward but the Main Event Fighter camp doesn't believe that its fighter should be listed as having lost, feeling it should be instead a no-contest. Another Boreland team member, Stjepan `The Croation Sensation' Vujnovic, improved to 3-0 for his career in the middleweight category in Halifax by scoring a quick armbar submission victory over New Brunswick's Andrew Belyea. Vujnovic, 27, won another bout just a couple of weeks ago in Victoriaville, Que. with an armbar at the TKO MMA Tourney, the first stop in that series. Georgetown's Ray Penny also posted a victory, shaking off a slow start to overwhelm his opponent in a clash of light heavyweights. Marc Laforet, Sophia Cieplucha, Trevor Burwell, Tasha Truscott, Karl Massey, Loren O'Brien-Egesborg, Keegan Dahl were the Halton Hills Blue Fins' representatives at the Ontario Junior Provincial Short Course Championships at the Etobicoke Olympium. Submitted photo