Regina’s Team Bryden used a two-point steal in the sixth end to upset Saskatoon’s Team Korte 5-4 in the World Curling Tour (WCT) championship at the Power Dodge Curling Centre in Estevan on Sunday.
“When you’re playing with this kind of competition you just need a break here and there and today we got breaks,” said skip Randy Bryden, whose team includes lead Trent Knapp, second Brock Montgomery and third Troy Robinson. “Bruce (Korte came) in light and lots of times he hits that four foot every time, so (him) coming up short was certainly a break for us today.”
Team Korte, which includes skip Bruce Korte, lead Matt Lang, second Dan Marsh and third Kevin Marsh, appeared destined to capture the WCT final until the sixth end. The Saskatoon-based foursome jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the first end and pushed the score to 3-1 in the third end.
After a blank fourth end, Team Bryden brought the match to within one in the fifth before taking the lead with the two-point steal in the sixth. Team Korte tied up the game in the seventh end with the hammer only to have Team Bryden notch the winning point in the eighth and final end by knocking a Korte rock off the button with the hammer.
“You try to (put) a couple of good guards up and they didn’t have one that turned up too well and it gave us a chance to peel guards away and keep it open for us for a draw at the end,” said Bryden. “We gambled with our first one (and) played it a quiet little tap and he had a chance for a hit and roll behind, which probably had a draw for the button and his (shot) just didn’t curl quite enough and it left a wide open hit.”
Team Bryden travelled a difficult route to get to the WCT final losing their first match of the 16-team bonspiel to Estevan’s Team Gedak on Friday. The squad then won their first two games in the B event before dropping the qualifier match to Team Ackerman on Saturday, which they followed up with three straight victories including a rematch on Sunday against Team Gedak to secure the championship berth.
Team Korte trod a much easier path to the final qualifying out of the A event with three straight wins to open the tourney before notching two more wins in the playoff round to make the championship match.
“We had control of the whole game, (but) that’s curling,” said Korte. “We just had one bad end the whole weekend and that (sixth end) was that end.”
Bryden said their team has been together for the past six years with the exception of Montgomery who only joined in the past off-season. Montgomery won the WCT stop in Estevan last year as a member of Josh Heidt’s team and his new skip noted he put the pressure on them to make sure his team remains on top.
“Anytime you can get a win at a bonspiel it doesn’t matter what bonspiel it is it’s just a good feeling,” said Bryden. “There are a lot of great teams out here and you got to play well to win and things worked out for us this weekend.”
