Brown steals to score first win over Gim at Boost National
CHESTERMERE, Alta. — Team Corryn Brown of Kamloops, B.C., stole four points in the seventh end to score their first win at the Boost National with a 9-5 victory over South Korea’s Team Un-Chi Gim during Draw 7 action Wednesday at Chestermere Recreation Centre.
Brown improved to a 1-1 record to stay in the B brackets of the triple knockout stage. Gim (0-2) fell into the C-side and must win three consecutive games in order to qualify for the playoffs with another defeat leading to elimination.
“It was nice having a much better game today and just overall having a better team game,” skip Corryn Brown said. “It was nice to win.”
Although it’s the first top-tier Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event for the team, they have played in the Tour Challenge Tier 2 twice and Brown herself competed in the Junior GSOC at the 2013 Masters in Abbotsford, B.C.
“Obviously, we always watched this on TV and it’s been a goal of ours,” Brown said. “We’ve just been grinding it out the last few years and finally made it here. It’s really exciting to be here.”
The game see-sawed back and forth up until the seventh when Gim’s last shot went through the house untouched to give up the decisive count of four.
“Just really key was to have them make some tough ones and we got a miss there on the last one that gave us a steal of four,” Brown said. “I think just making them shoot, that was the key. I think yesterday we didn’t really put our rocks in positions that made it tougher for the other team, so that’s mainly what we did today. We had really good rock positioning.”
Meanwhile, Masters champions Team Tracy Fleury of East St. Paul, Man., and Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat have continued their winning ways moving up to 2-0 records in the A brackets.
Fleury, who successfully defended the Masters women’s title, sailed past Team Alina Kovaleva from Russia 8-1 and Mouat, who has won three consecutive Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling men’s championships, held off Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller 6-5.
“We’re feeling good so far,” Team Fleury second Liz Fyfe said. “We’re sort of just trying to keep what we had going last week into this week. We’re rolling with this.”
It was a close one to start between Fleury and Kovaleva with singles back and forth. Fleury was up 2-1 after three ends and rode the steal train swiping three points in the fourth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh to roll away as Kovaleva struggled on her final shots.
“I think in the beginning of the game we were a little bit slow in picking up on some of the paths and stuff,” Fyfe said. “Once we got a handle on the ice we were just putting them in there, putting some pressure on them, seeing if we could get some misses and we were fortunate enough to get a few. It worked out.”
Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni also climbed to a 2-0 record and into the A-qualifiers with an 8-5 victory over Team Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man.
Kovaleva and Einarson dropped into the B brackets of the women’s division with Schwaller slipping into the B-side of the men’s division with all of them at 1-1.
Boost National: Live Scores and Standings | Draw Schedule | Broadcast Schedule
UP NEXT
The triple knockout stage continues with Draw 8 at 8 p.m. MT. Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at 2 p.m. ET / Noon MT on Sportsnet, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).
TRIPLE KNOCKOUT EXPLAINED
The triple knockout consists of three brackets: A, B and C. Teams must win three games in order to qualify for the playoffs. Each loss drops a team to a lower bracket until they lose three games and are out of the tournament. Two A teams (3-0 records), three B teams (3-1 records) and three C teams (3-2 records) advance to the quarterfinals.
NO TICK ZONE
Teams cannot tick guards off of the centre line while the five-rock, free guard zone is in effect during the eighth and extra ends.
NOTES
The Boost National is the second of five events on the 2021-22 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling schedule and features 16 of the top men’s teams and 16 of the top women’s teams from around the world with a combined $300,000 prize purse. … The winning teams earning $33,000 plus spots in the season-ending KIOTI Tractor Champions Cup. … Triple knockout play runs through to Saturday morning. The quarterfinals and semifinals are also Saturday with both finals set for Sunday. … Tickets are available at boost.goigniter.com.
