Scotland will meet hosts Italy in a top of the table clash in their only game of day five at the World Junior Championships in Cortina after stealing at the extra end of their meeting with Denmark to maintain their unbeaten record as they approach the halfway stage of the round-robin competition.
The all-teenage quartet of Orrin and Logan Carson, Archie Hyslop and Charlie Gibb ended the match as they had started it, playing without the hammer and last stone advantage, but showed maturity as well as fighting qualities to come through with an 8-7 win over last year’s bronze medallists.
Having lost the pre-match draw shot challenge, they did well in the early ends to overturn the disadvantage of starting without the hammer, to lead 5-4 at the midway break. 
However, they then had to weather the storm of a powerful Danish comeback and as pleased as he was with his team’s initial efforts, skip Orrin Carson magnanimously admitted that they had been fortunate to get the chance to win the match.
“We were disappointed not to get the hammer from the draw shot, but we had a really strong first five ends and were probably unlucky not to take a bigger lead into half-time, so we’ll look to take that first half performance into future games,” he said.
“The second half though, they were the better team and we struggled from the sixth end right through to the 10th.
“We were never really at it at all and we were quite fortunate to actually take it to an extra end where we forced him to play his last shot and we were glad we got the miss that we needed.
“We certainly know we need to do better tomorrow, but we’ll make sure we do that.”
Ultimately the match came down to making the right judgement at the right time in the knowledge that Danish skip Jacob Schmidt was, one way or another, going to have a chance to win the match.
“We said ‘make sure we leave him a draw instead of a hit,’ because he was hitting really well all game, so we did what we wanted to do, but we know we need to be better than that in games to come if we’re going to keep winning,” Carson explained.
Having also beaten last year’s gold medallists Norway, Scotland’s 2023 bronze medal winning quartet reckon they will have to raise their game further if they are to beat the third of the teams that finished on the podium a year ago, beaten finalists Italy, who have drawn on partisan support to match the Scots by winning their first four matches.
“Italy are playing very well, but so are we, so we know it will be a really tight game and we’re really looking forward to it,” said Carson. 
“Obviously the home crowd will be right behind them, but I think that’ll only add to the occasion and the atmosphere, so we’ll look forward to that too and hopefully we can come out on top.”
The World Junior Curling Championships runs from 12-21 April.
Watch streamed games on The Curling Channel
Schedule:
Sunday 13 April
Session 2
Scotland – USA 11-10
Session 3
Scotland – Korea 9-7(EE)
Monday 14 April
Session 4
Scotland – Norway 8-1
Tuesday 15 April
Session 6
Scotland – Denmark 8-7 (EE)
Wednesday 16 April
Session 7
Scotland – Italy
Thursday 17 April
Session 8
Scotland – Japan
Friday 18 April
Session 10
Scotland – Canada
Saturday 19 April
Session 12
Scotland – Germany
Sunday 20 April
Semi finals
Monday 21 April
Final and bronze medal game
Team Scotland
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
Jake MacDonald
