Bottcher beats Edin to pick up pivotal third win at KIOTI Tractor Champions Cup
REGINA — Canada’s Brendan Bottcher continues to roll at the KIOTI Tractor Champions Cup with his team climbing to a 3-0 record in pool play.
Bottcher bounced Sweden’s Niklas Edin 7-4 Thursday afternoon in a pivotal victory as three wins in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament will likely guarantee another game past the round-robin portion.
The Calgary-based crew are in the driver’s seats controlling their own destinies as they still have two more preliminary games to go including an evening matchup against Scotland’s Bruce Mouat.
“I think it’s a big win for us for this week,” Team Bottcher third Marc Kennedy said. “We definitely got some misses out of Niklas that we usually don’t get, so that was nice for once. But we played well, we’re having fun and we want to finish the season strong, keep doing all of the things that we’ve been working on all season long and catapult us into the off-season and a good next year.
“Big win for us in the standings and hopefully we can come out and play a good one tonight.”
Although Edin opened with the hammer, he was forced to draw for a single in the first end.
Edin jammed a double attempt in the second end allowing Bottcher to attempt a split on a guard to potentially score four. Bottcher couldn’t get the shooter to roll into the rings but a count of three still gave him a two-point lead.
The reigning Olympic gold medallist tied it with a deuce in the third. Bottcher matched in the fourth and stole a pair in the fifth after making an amazing hit and roll to the button and Edin ended up taking out his own rock instead.
“I got us into a little trouble after missing my last one, but Brendan made two absolute pistols,” Kennedy said. “He played great all game but he made a couple of out-turn hits that definitely turned the tide. They definitely could have easily gotten three in the fifth and instead, we come out with a four-point lead.
“Kudos to Bottch, he’s been great all week. You need your skip to play great to win these things and he’s been doing that for us.”
Edin was only able to score a single in the sixth and shook hands early.
Team Bottcher have been having a blast in Regina where lead Ben Hebert was born and raised.
“He took us out yesterday with some buddies to Mosaic Stadium. It was a fantastic experience,” Kennedy said. “It’s a great city, we’ve got a lot of support here. We’re looking forward to hopefully being in here for the Brier next year.
“It’s just a great curling community and to have Benny on your team in Regina isn’t a bad thing.”
Elsewhere, Canada’s Matt Dunstone also moved up to 3-0 and by a similar score as his team defeated Ross Whyte’s Scottish side 7-4. Whyte has a 1-2 record.
In women’s play, South Korea’s Eun-Ji Gim scored five in the first and cruised past Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes 10-2. Gim got into the win column at 1-2 while Lawes dropped to a 0-3 record.
Tabitha Peterson of the United States edged Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni 7-5 in an extra end. Peterson’s record is now 3-1 with Tirinzoni at 1-2.
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UP NEXT
Round-robin action continues at the Co-operators Centre with Draw 10 at 4 p.m. local time (6 p.m. ET).
Watch live on Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).
NOTES
The KIOTI Tractor Champions Cup is the sixth and final event of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling featuring 12 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams who have won top tour titles to qualify. … Both divisions are split into two pools of six teams for round-robin play. The best six teams overall qualify for Saturday’s quarterfinals with the top two receiving byes to the semifinals. … The finals are scheduled for Sunday.
