(by Allen Cameron) Five teams will head into the evening draw of the 2014 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship tied for first place, thanks to the results of Draw 6 on Monday afternoon at the Rideau Curling Club in Ottawa.
Ontario skip Cory Heggestad encourages his sweepers with Quebec skip Mike Fournier looking on. (Photo, CCA/Claudette Bockstael, Studio C Photography)
In the feature match, Quebec (Mike Fournier) dropped from the ranks of the unbeaten bowing 6-4 to defending champion Cory Heggestad of Ontario.
The Orillia CC skip, scored single points in the first four ends before Fournier could get on the board with a deuce in the fifth to make the score 4-2 for Ontario at the break. Fournier then stole one in the sixth and had a nice end going in the seventh, only to have Heggestad calmly raise a front stone to the button for a single. He would steal another in the eighth, and was able to hold Quebec to one in the ninth to cruise home with the win, which left both teams with 3-1 records.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s Sylvie Robichaud, Alberta’s Darren Moulding and Saskatchewan’s Shaun Meachem kept up their impressive play, each earning solid wins to get into the logjam at 3-1.
Robichaud, with third Marcel Robichaud, second Marie Richard and lead Lloyd Morrison, scored two on the fourth end, three more in the sixth, then singles in the eighth and ninth for a comfortable 7-3 win over B.C.’s Keith Switzer, who dropped to 1-3.
Moulding and his Alberta team from the Coaldale and Airdrie CCs, meanwhile, stifled former mixed champion Sean Grassie of Manitoba 8-4. Counts of two in each of the first, fifth and seventh ends led him to an 8-4 win. Manitoba fell to 1-3 with the loss.
Finally, Saskatchewan’s Shaun Meachem and team continued to impress, thumping P.E.I.’s Rod MacDonald 10-4, finishing things off with four points in the ninth. P.E.I.’s record dipped to 1-3.
Teams with the afternoon byes: Northwest Territories (0-3), Newfoundland & Labrador (1-2), Nova Scotia (1-2) & Northern Ontario (2-1).
Round-robin games continue until Friday morning. The semifinal will be played that day at 8:30 p.m. AT with the Championship Final at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 23.
Live scoring can be viewed ?www.curling.ca/scoreboard
The Official Mixed Web Site? www.curling.ca/2014mixed-en
Host committee’s web page? www.canadianmixed.com/
Facebook? www.facebook.com/canadianmixed