The playoff picture is starting to become a little clearer at the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling’s Meridian Canadian Open as four teams punched their tickets into Saturday’s quarter-finals through the ‘B’ bracket.
On the men’s side, John Morris’s Vernon, B.C. continued their solid play as they picked up a 5-2 win over defending world champion Kevin Koe of Calgary.
“Every game we’ve been getting better and better,” Team Morris fourth stone thrower Jim Cotter said.
“We had a really good performance against Reid (Carruthers) last night and we were even better today against Kevin. That’s exactly what you want to see heading into the playoffs.”
Thanks to sharp shooting by Cotter and Morris, Koe found himself in trouble on numerous occasions and was forced to make a number of long runback shots throughout the game.
“That sort of what happens when you play the five-rock rule,” Cotter said. “We got up on them early on and we knew that they were going to come at us, so we ended up putting a lot of rocks in play.
“That can be a little scary at times when you are playing that team, as they are all really good hitters and they can always make shots.”
American John Shuster also earned a quarter-final berth as he defeated Edmonton’s Charley Thomas in an 7-4 affair.
“We haven’t qualified for the playoffs since the first Grand Slam event of last year, so it’s really nice to get that monkey off our back,” Team Shuster second Matt Hamilton said.
“We’ve been firing on all cylinders since we came to North Battleford and we’re able to keep our heads about us after that tough loss to (Niklas) Edin yesterday.”
The other ‘B’ men’s final was a tight affair between Brad Gushue and Mike McEwen, as Gushue earned a playoff spot by a score of 6-4.
Meanwhile, the most crowd-pleasing result came on Sheet A as Bruce Korte of Saskatoon stole three points in the final end for an 8-4 win over Reid Carruthers of Winnipeg.
After a great draw by Korte to lie three on his last, Carruthers needed to make a run-back to force an extra end, but he just missed Korte’s shot stone to fall out of the tournament.
Korte will now play McEwen at 6:30 p.m. tonight for a spot in the playoffs.
The lone’s women game in Draw 11 saw Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones earn a playoff spot after an 8-4 win over Mississauga’s Jacqueline Harrison.
Action will resume at 3 p.m. at the Civic Centre with five women’s games.
Two playoffs spots will be up for grabs in the ‘B’ event as Allison Flaxey will play Kelsey Rocque and Michelle Englot will square off with Anna Hasselborg.
Meanwhile, there will be three winner-take-all games in the ‘C’ event.
Tracy Fleury will face Bingyu Wang, Kerri Einarson goes up against Casey Scheidegger and Brianne Meilleur takes on Rachel Homan.
