Gunnlaugson knocked out of Viterra Championship

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This article was published 12/02/2022 (1588 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK – Jason Gunnlaugson and his rink from the Morris Curling Club have gone from battling for a provincial crown to scoreboard watching.

The reigning Viterra Championship title holders were knocked out of this year’s tournament at the Selkirk Curling Club on Saturday morning as they lost a 7-4 contest to Ryan Wiebe.

As a result, Gunnlaugson will have to wait for results of this weekend’s other provincial playdowns before finding out if he’s earned one of the three wild card spots that are available for the 2022 Tim Hortons Brier, which takes place next month in Lethbridge, Alta.

In the latest Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) standings – which is what Curling Canada uses to determine the wild card squads – Gunnlaugson was just ahead of Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone for fifth place, with Brad Jacobs and Glenn Howard sitting in third and fourth spots ahead of the Northern Ontario and Ontario playdowns.

Brad Gushue is ranked first, but won’t be at the Brier due to his participation in the Winter Olympics, while Kevin Koe’s second ranked rink has already earned a spot in the event after winning the Alberta tankard.

“We won’t know until Monday I think, but I feel like we have a chance of getting one of those spots with how well we’ve played to start the year,” Gunnlaugson said.

“It’s a tough way for our week to finish here but that’s how curling goes sometimes. There’s weeks where you play well and there’s weeks where you don’t.”

Gunnlaugson, who curls with Adam Casey, Matt Wozniak and Connor Njegovan, suffered an 8-3 loss to Colton Lott’s Winnipeg Beach rink in their playoff round opener Friday night.

That put them in a win-or-go-home contest against Wiebe, which they spent the majority of chasing the Fort Rouge rink.

“We didn’t play very well in either game,” Gunnlaugson said. “It wasn’t a great performance for us all week to be honest. We thought that we’d keep building and building as the week went on, but that never really happened.

“It might actually be a good thing for us now to have a week off and regroup a bit if we do get that wild card spot.”

For Wiebe, who is joined on his rink by Ty Diello, Sean Flatt, Adam Flatt and Hayden Forrester, Saturday’s win brought a feeling of redemption for the youngster.

In his last game on Friday night, he flashed a takeout attempt in the tenth end to give up a steal of two to William Lyburn of the Granite and lose by a score of 7-6.

“I didn’t sleep for the first hour or so last night, but when I got up today it was a new slate,” Wiebe said.

“We actually played really well against Willie so we took a lot of confidence from that into our game with Jason.”

Wiebe, who has also beat Gunnlaugson in ‘A’ qualifiers at the last two provincials, sealed the victory in the eighth end with a great angle raise double takeout to score three points.

“That was a tricky one because if we missed anything high, that’s a steal of two,” Wiebe said. “It was running high at first and I held my breath until we actually made it.”

Meanwhile, Colton Lott and Mike McEwen both punched their tickets into Saturday’s 1 vs. 2 Page playoff contest, which gets underway at 6 p.m.

Lott – who plays with Kyle Doering, Tanner Lott, Emerson Klimpke and Kody Janzen – cruised to a 9-3 win over Lyburn to improve to 4-0 for the week.

“It feels great to make it there (the 1 vs. 2 game) but it’s not over yet,” Lott said. “We’re going to take things easy this afternoon and then get ourselves pumped again for tonight.

“Everything’s been working well for us so far. We’ve got a read on the ice and how much it’s curling so we can put the broom in the right spot, and our communication has been there right from the start.”

While Lott’s journey to the Page playoff was rather convincing, McEwen’s road to the final four was the polar opposite.

After stealing a point in an extra end for a 4-3 win over Fort Garry’s Corey Chambers Friday night, he trailed Braden Calvert’s Assiniboine squad by a score of 6-3 after eight frames Saturday morning.

The East St. Paul rink, which includes Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson, tied things up in the ninth and stole another point in the tenth for a 6-5 triumph and a date with Lott later this evening.

“It’s been a battle, that’s for sure,” said Samagalski, who lives in Carberry. “We played well in both games but Corey and Braden’s teams both made a lot of shots.

“We just told ourselves when we got down by three that we just needed to hang in there and grind it out. With the five-rock rule, you can sneak up on someone with a deuce or three points and that’s what we did in nine. It was close though at the end, as Braden pretty much had a nose-double for the win, but it just overcurled on him.”

Calvert won’t have long to dwell on his loss to McEwen as he plays Wiebe at 2 p.m. for a spot in the 3 vs. 4 Page playoff game.

The other matchup in that draw will see Lyburn taking on Chambers, who ended the week for Jacques Gauthier’s Assiniboine quartet with a 5-4 extra end triumph Saturday morning.

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