For the third time in four years Mike McEwen will meet Reid Carruthers in the final of the Provincial Men’s Curling Championship.

B.J. Neufeld, Matt Wozniak and Denni Neufeld, defeated two-time reigning provincial junior champion J.T. Ryan of Assiniboine Memorial 6-2 in the Viterra Championship semifinal Sunday morning at the Winkler Centennial Arena.

For Neufeld, Wozniak and Neufeld it was their sixth consecutive game as a threesome.

McEwen, who played in game one back on Wednesday afternoon, spent the last three days in the hospital recovering from chickenpox and was released this morning.

He will not play this afternoon in the final against Carruthers.

Ryan, Jacques Gauthier, Colin Kurz and Brendan Bilawaka played 10 games in Winkler and won six elimination games in row before losing to McEwen this morning.

“I’m still happy,” said Ryan shortly after his 2018 Viterra Championship run came to an end. “Right now it sucks. I would have liked to have won or at least had a more competitive game but it won’t take long for me to get over it. We’ll all be pretty happy in a little bit.”

Ryan, who lost in the semifinals of the Canadian Junior Championship last month in Shawinigan, Quebec, said the semifinal against the two-time defending Viterra champions was a great learning experience.

“We learned it’s pretty tough to win a game when you give up four in the first two ends so hopefully try not to do that again. We didn’t get too down on ourselves. We had a couple of chances where if we would have made one or two more we could have gotten a deuce to try to change the momentum. We just couldn’t make the key ones.”

Wozniak says playing early on Sunday has benefits.

“It’s very similar to last year in that we lost to Reid in the 1-2 game and then had a really strong game in the morning. If you had the choice of being in the final, one way or the other, you would take playing in the morning for sure. You get another chance to be on that ice. I don’t think we’ll get the same rocks as we just had but regardless, just being out there was certainly a plus for us.”

Carruthers beat McEwen 7-3 Saturday night to advance to the final.

“We just have to play a little better,” Wozniak said. “We talked about our approach and our game plan was exactly what we were looking for. If B.J. makes that shot in the fourth end it’s a different ball game and that was something he makes more than he misses. It was just execution last night.”