The  Un-Chi Gim foursome from Korea beat the defending champion Suzanne Birt rink from the Charlottetown Curling Club 6-4 this afternoon to win the annual  Jim Sullivan Curling Classic at the Thistle-St. Andrews Curling Club in Saint John NB. The teams were tied after four ends, when Gim followed a Birt single point in end five with a double in six, and then stole the seventh for the two-point lead coming home, and kept Birt from scoring the needed deuce to tie the last end.

Team Gim vs. Team Birt. Photo by Stephen Thompson, TSA Curling Club

Team Birt – L-R: Suzanne Birt, Marie Christianson, Meaghan Hughes, Michelle McQuaid

The Korean team advanced to the championship game with a 9-6 semi-final win over Fredericton NB’s Andrea Crawford, while Team Birt downed Nova Scotia’s Tanya Hillard foursome 7-2 in four ends in their semi-final matchup.

In the quarters, defending champion Birt rink was trailing 3-1 after five ends of play, but deuces in ends six and eight gave them a 5-4 win over the Chenyi Wang foursome from Beijing China.

Teams Birt and Wang

Also in the quarter-finals, Team Hilliard eliminated the 2017 winning team skipped by Sylvie (Robichaud) Quillian of Curl Moncton with a 10-3 score in six ends of play, with all Hilliard’s points coming in two five-point ends.

Gim beat New Brunswick’s Sarah Mallais 6-4 in the quarters, while Crawford stole ends 6 and 7 in a 7-2 win over fellow New Brunswicker Justine Comeau.

PEI’s Veronica Smith rink finished play with one win and three losses. There were no PEI teams in the men’s event, which was won by Oromocto NB’s James Grattan rink, who beat Scott Jones and his Curl Moncton team 8-6 in the final.

Live results at: https://www.curlingzone.com/event.php?eventid=5980&eventtypeid=82&view=Scores#1