PARKSVILLE — They came to the Canadian Direct Insurance B.C. Men’s Curling Championships as an unheralded team from the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster. They will be leaving with a third-place finish and a very bright future.

Chris Baier from Victoria and his young shooters from Royal City have an average age of 24 and they were the crowd favourites during this 16-team competition. Baier, Michael Johnson (final rock thrower), Jay Wakefield and John Cullen were eliminated Saturday, dropping a 7-6 extra-end decision to defending champion Jim Cotter from Kelowna in the semifinal.

“We accomplished our goals here,’’ said Baier. “The difference tonight was that we didn’t capitalize on our chances. We weren’t able to pick up the extra points. The Cotter team is very good and we lost twice to them here in extra ends.

“It was a fun week and we had lots of fun.’’

Earlier Saturday, Baier earned a berth in the semifinal with a win over Sean Geall from Delta with an exciting 9-8 extra-end victory. Jason Montgomery from Duncan was playing third for Geall.

Baier fell behind 4-1 to Geall before storming back for the victory.

Cotter will meet Brent Pierce from Royal City in today’s 5 p.m. final on Shaw TV.

Just before the start of the curling season, Jeff Richard from Kelowna was looking for a competitive team to hook up with. He called Pierce and after several conversations, they decided to join forces.

The Pierce-Richard combination has been magical so far. With the front-end of second Kevin Recksiedler and lead Grant Dezura, Pierce and Richard have a perfect record at 5-0 and are one win away from returning to the Tim Hortons Brier.

They earned spot in today’s final with an easy 9-2 triumph Saturday over defending champion Jim Cotter from Kelowna in the Page playoff (1 vs. 2 contest).

“My third from last year [Tom Shypitka] didn’t want to play a total competitive season so I went looking for a new team,’’ said the 32-year-old Richard, who won the B.C. championship in 2010 as a skip.

“When we put this team together, we clicked almost immediately. We started off with Brent calling the game and I threw the final stones. In November, we switched and Brent threw the last stones and I played third.

“So far, we have met all of our goals. We won the Wainwright bonspiel and finished second in two others.’’

Richard is from a curling family.

His father Gerry won a Brier and world championship with Rick Folk in 1994. His sister Jeanna Schraeder is a two-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts winner and a world champion.

The B.C. winner advances to the Brier, March 3-11 in Saskatoon.

The Island was represented by four teams — Jody Epp, Jay Tuson and Neil Dangerfield, all from the Victoria Curling Centre and Steve Waatainen from Nanaimo.