Jacobs wins round robin finale

Looking to finish the season off on a good note, Brad Jacobs needed a win on Friday to continue playing into the weekend at the final Grand Slam of Curling event of the season, the Champions Cup in Saskatoon.

The Jacobs rink, which includes third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden, picked up a 9-3 win over Ross Paterson of Scotland on Friday and earned at least a spot in tiebreaker action on Saturday.

The win keeps the Jacobs rink alive in its final tournament together.

Third Ryan Fry is leaving the team and joining John Epping’s team while Marc Kennedy is returning to curling after a year away from competition to join the Jacobs rink.

“The last couple games we were not our best and a little frustrating and disappointing, so it was good to come out with a win and none of us wanted to end this seven-year run no qualifying,” E.J. Harnden told TheGrandSlamOfCurling.com’s Jonathan Brazeau.

“It was great for us to put a solid performance together this afternoon,” Harnden added.

Jacobs and Paterson traded deuces in the opening two ends before Jacobs took the lead for good with another pair in the third and before stealing one in the fourth end to take a 5-2 lead.

After Paterson scored one in the fifth end, Jacobs sealed the win with four in the sixth.

Friday’s win assures the Jacobs rink of a spot in a tiebreaker game on Saturday morning.

The tournament features 15 men’s and 15 women’s teams that are divided into three pools of five teams.

The top eight teams advance to the playoff round.

Kevin Koe (Calgary), Bruce Mouat (Scotland), Niklas Edin (Sweden), Brendan Bottcher (Edmonton), and John Morris (skipping the team normally led by American gold medalist John Shuster) each had three wins and were assured of playoff spots on Friday evening.

Edin and Morris, both 3-0, were in action in draw 12 at the time of writing, facing each other.

Jacobs and Matt Dunstone of Regina, Sask. had 2-2 records and exactly what their fate is will depend on the results from Friday’s final draw, which includes a pair of 2-1 teams in Epping and Brad Gushue of St. John’s, Nfld.

Reid Carruthers could also get into the mix with a Friday night win. The Winnipeg-based rink enters Friday’s final draw with a 1-2 record. A win would also put the Carruthers rink into the tiebreaker mix.

Friday’s final round robin draw was set to have the Carruthers rink face Bottcher (3-0) while Koe (3-0) was set to face Gushue (2-1), and Epping (2-1) was set to face Kirk Muyres of Saskatoon (0-3).