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SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers is back on track at the BOOST National improving to a 2-1 round-robin record.

Carruthers fended off Toronto’s John Epping 9-6 Thursday afternoon at the Essar Centre.

Although Carruthers never trailed and has Epping’s number of late winning all three meetings this season, the team didn’t ease up at any point.

“I don’t think I remember Reid missing a shot throughout the game so obviously, when your skipper’s playing well it makes it a lot easier,” Team Carruthers third Braeden Moskowy said. “We got off to a good start all four ways. We played pretty solid and then we got a few uncharacteristic misses out of Johnny so that obviously helped. We got out in front but they’re a good team and knew they would scratch and claw their way back in and they got that three. We just had to keep our foot on the gas pedal.”

With the hammer to start, Carruthers took control early splitting up the rings to set up a deuce. Epping (0-3) went for a cross-house double but rolled under the second and Carruthers eased in his last to score two.

After forcing Epping to one in the second, Carruthers tacked on another two-spot to extend his lead to 4-1 through three. Things went from bad to worse for Epping in the fourth as he attempted one of his trademark angle-raise doubles for two but didn’t get the right alignment and gave up a couple and fall behind by five points.

The game was far from over though. Carruthers tried to run out a guard with his first skip stone in the fifth end but it stuck around in the house and set the table for Epping to get back into it with a run double takeout for three points.

The teams alternated pairs of points in six and seven. Carruthers had a couple looks at trying to hold Epping to one in the seventh but was content with giving up two in order to retain the hammer for the home stretch.

“[The seventh] was kind of a funny end,” Moskowy said. “We had some chances to maybe go for it and really try and force them but at the end of the day we were pretty happy to be two-up coming home against a team like that so we just kind of took our medicine there and played a pretty simple end and they made a deuce of it so we were in a good spot coming home still.”

Epping’s last in the eighth went sideways from the target and Carruthers tacked on another point.

After dropping his opening match Tuesday to Chang-Min Kim of South Korea, Carruthers rounded the corner with a win Wednesday against China’s Rui Liu and has one round-robin game remaining Friday against Pat Simmons’ squad from Winnipeg. Getting back into top form in time for next month’s Canadian Olympic curling trials is the key goal for the 2016 Canada Cup champions.

“We’re getting there,” Moskowy said. “We still have some stuff to work on. I think we’re trending in the right direction and all four of us are starting to throw the rock better. There are just a few certain things we’re focusing on this week that we’re looking to do well in the trials so 2-1 that’s a pretty good start and we’ve got another tough one against Simmons.”

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Meanwhile, Winnipeg’s Jason Gunnlaugson outlasted Calgary’s Kevin Koe 8-6 in an extra end. Gunnlaugson, who won the Tour Challenge Tier 2 title, raised his record to 3-0 while handing Koe (2-1) his first defeat of the tournament.

Kim (3-0) continued his impressive run in his series debut with a 9-1 trouncing over Liu (0-3). Liu’s lone point came in the first as Kim took two in the second and rolled away from there on the “steal train” swiping two in the third, singles in the fourth and fifth frames and three in the sixth stanza.

Scotland’s Bruce Mouat rebounded big time to hammer John Morris of Vernon, B.C., 8-2 in just five ends.

Mouat (2-1) fell to Brad Gushue in an extra end Wednesday night and charged out of the gate against Morris bringing out the firepower and scoring five in the first.

“It’s nice to score big in the first end,” Mouat said. “It just kind of settles the nerves a bit. We played a really good end and just managed to get on top of them. Nice hack weight for a little five, so it’s good.”

Morris, who just qualified for the Canadian Olympic curling trials Sunday, was forced to hit for a single in two and Mouat padded his lead with a deuce in the third. The teams exchanged singles in four and five as Mouat reclaimed the six-point advantage and Morris called it a day early.

“It’s always cool to take someone like Brad Gushue and what his record is and pretty much everything to an extra end and potentially to win if I make my first in eight,” Mouat said. “We wanted to bounce back after that but we knew we had taken him there so we knew we could play against any of these guys at this level.”

Morris (0-3) is winless in 11 games this season in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season.

The BOOST National is the third event and second major of the 2017-18 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and features 15 of the best men’s teams and 15 of the best women’s teams from around the globe.

Round-robin play runs through to Friday with the top eight on each side qualifying for the weekend playoffs.

TV coverage continues at 4 p.m. ET on Sportsnet, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and gsoc.yaretv.com (international).