It required some scrambling and a little overtime work, but Brad Gushue and his St. John’s teammates booked a spot in the playoff round at the Boost National with 7-6 extra-end win over Scotland’s Ross Paterson Thursday at the Conception Bay South Arena.
The result moves Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker to a 3-0 record in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event. Although they have one preliminary-round game remaining, against defending Canadian men’s champion Kevin Koe tonight, Gushue and Co. are guaranteed to be among the top eight round-robin finishers who will move into the quarter-finals, which begin Saturday.
Paterson, who is the defending National champion — he won it last year in C.B.S. — led 4-0 after two ends Thursday afternoon, scoring two with a first-end, last-rock advantage, then stealing a couple more in the second.
Gushue got on the board with two of his own in the third, but still trailed 5-2 at the fourth-end break. But the home-province rink outscored the Scots 5-1 the rest of the way, posting a big three in the fifth end and stealing one in the seventh before forcing Paterson to a single score in the eighth. That tied the game at 6-6, but also meant the hammer was handed over to Gushue, who used it to nail down the winning point he needed in extra time.
The National involves 30 teams, 15 men and 15 women, competing for a total prize purse of $300,000.
Two Swiss rinks, a men's entry skipped by Peter de Cruz and one headed up by Elena Stern on the women's side, are 3-0 and playoff-bound. Tracy Fleury's Manitoba team is also 3-0 and knows its will be in the women's playoffs..
The our draws today begin at 9 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
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