(CCA) Mike Assad had to win two games today to be in the hunt for a semi final berth at the Canadian Mixed curling championship in Sudbury.
With a significant crowd behind him this morning, the Thunder Bay skip squared off with leader Alberta. Balderston, who has already earned a berth to Saturday’s final, could only play spoiler and spoil he did. A key steal of one in the 6th end put him up three points. Assad managed a deuce in the 8th to pull to within one but gave it right back in the 9th resulting in a final score 7-4.
Alberta improves to 11-1 while Assad drops to 7-5. Interestingly enough, teams with five losses are still in the hunt for tie-breakers. It promises to be a wild finish!
Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman kept his hopes alive thumping New Brunswick 8-2. Both teams are now 8-4 and tied for second place.
Manitoba’s Sean Grassie gave up two points in the 10th on two fine shots by Steve Moss of Yellowknife for an exciting NWT 5-4 win. Moss stays alive at 6-5 and, like Grassie at 7-5, must hope for teams to come back to the pack at five losses.
PEI’s Brett Gallant looked down and out earlier in the week, but now has a flicker of hope after beating NL’s Gary Alcock 8-7 in an extra end. PEI is now 7-5 and NL is at 2-9.
In the final morning game, Nova Scotia cruised by Nunavut 9-5. Nova Scotia’s Chris Sutherland improves to 3-8 while Sattelberger drops to 1-10.
Quebec and Ontario both had morning byes and they are tied for fourth place at 7-4. BC also had the morning off and sit at 6-5; they too are still in the chase. Yukon had the final morning bye and are winless at 0-11.
The semi-finals are tentatively scheduled for 8:00 pm Atlantic time Friday, November 18 (depending on a tie-breaker schedule) and the championship final, featuring Team Alberta, will be played Saturday, November 19th at 2:30 pm.