West St. Paul’s Reid Carruthers moved one step closer to his first title of the season by beating Brad Jacobs 7-5 in the men’s quarter-finals of the Grand Slam of Curling’s The National in Oshawa, Ontario.
The two rinks traded singles until the fifth end when Carruthers made an open hit for a triple to go up 5-2. Jacobs chipped away at the defending Manitoba champion’s lead by scoring a double in the sixth and a single in the seventh to tie it up 5-5. Carruthers though sealed the win with a pair points in the eighth as Jacobs’ final stone of the game failed to curl into the house with Carruthers counting two.
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Carruthers will now face four-time world champion, Glenn Howard, in Saturday evening’s semifinals and is the only Manitoba rink left standing at The National.
2014 Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Jones was eliminated with a 6-5 loss to Saskatoon skip Stefanie Lawton in the quarter-finals. Fellow Winnipegger Kristy McDonald was also knocked out of the first round of the playoffs as she fell 8-4 to Sudbury’s Tracy Fleury.
McDonald advanced to the women’s quarter-finals by beating Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni 8-3 in a tiebreaker early Saturday morning. The same can’t be said for East St. Paul’s Kerri Einarson who just missed out on the knockout round with a 8-7 tiebreaker loss to Edmonton’s Kelsey Rocque.
Defending The National men’s champion Mike McEwen failed to crack the playoffs, finishing round robin play with a 1-3 record.
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